
Class "?R cL3*H 
Book .ftf 
Copyright^? 



copyright deposit. 



THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE 



AN IMPARTIAL STUDT 



SHAKESPEARE TITLE 



WITH FACSIMILES 



T 



JOHN H. STOTSENBURG 




liOTTISVILIiB, KESTCCKT 

JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY 

19 4 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

DEC 22 1904 

Oooyi it'in entry 

CLASS &J XXc, Noi 

/0*£5~/Q 

COPY B. 



•Si 



Copyrighted by JOHN H. STOTSENBIJRG 

1904 






I 

) 



DEDICATION. 

I dedicate this book to the author of the " Promus." I 

know her through her works, and they show indubitably 

that she has earnestly, learnedly, and enthusiastically 

labored to expose the Shaksper fraud, and that to her 

more than to any other person is due the continuance 

of a literary controversy which will, sooner or later, bring 

out all the principal facts as to the authorship of the 

Shakespeare plays. 

John H. Stotsenburg. 



PREFACE. 

I have undertaken to present facts to show, first, that 
William Shaksper, of Stratford-on-Avon, did not write 
the plays and poems heretofore attributed to him; second- 
ly, that the plays, or at least a great part of them, were 
originally composed by collaborators; and thirdly, that 
they in part or in whole were corrected, revised, and 
added to by a person or persons other than William 
Shaksper. 

But some one may say, "What is all this worth, even 
if proved? If you displace Shaksper, of what importance 
really is it to the world, if you discover or aid in discover- 
ing the man or men who should be rightfully set up in 
his place?" If it were merely a matter of fact as between 
a false and a true claimant, it would make little difference 
to the world at large; but the true author or authors of 
the magnificent poems and plays, now going under Shak- 
sper's name, are apparently unknown to the reading public. 

There is therefore a grand field of investigation open 
to the student of English literature. 

While I strive to give facts only, and not conjectures, 
for the benefit of the reader so that he can form his own 
opinion, based upon those facts, as to the authorship, 
I have taken the liberty to give my own opinion also, 
especially upon collateral matters, such for instance as 
letters, poetical allusions, and written communications 



Vlll PREFACE. 

which have been misinterpreted for the purpose of bolster- 
ing up the false Shaksper claim. I refer especially to 
Greene's " Groat's-worth of Wit," and Daniel's letter to 
Egerton, so much quoted and relied upon by Sh'aksperites 
and, as I remember, not generally controverted by the 
Baconians. As to the " Groat's-worth of Wit," an able 
writer, Edwin Reed, in his book entitled "Bacon vs. Shak- 
sper," issued in 1897, takes the correct position, and he is 
supported by Edward James Castle in his " Shakespeare, 
Bacon, Jonson, and Greene," published in the same year. 
I must give credit also to Fleay, a believer in the Shaksper 
theory, who rejects the Malone guess as to the Shake- 
scene reference. I take the position that the author or 
authors of the plays can be found without the aid of 
ciphers, and that no author can go beyond his stock of 
words and phrases. Every man's words and phrases are 
limited in number — no more, no less. 

I have maintained in this book that the key to the 
authorship, or at least to the discovery of one of the prin- 
cipal authors, will be found in the elucidation of the author- 
ship of the two poems respectively called Venus and 
Adonis and Tarquin and Lucrece. The authorities which 
I rely upon are such as can not be disputed by Shaksper- 
ites; and with the Shaksper fiction out of the way, the 
truth as to the real authorship will sooner or later reach 
and convince the popular mind. Investigation in this 
field marked the closing years of the last century, and it 
is going on impartially and carefully in the early years of 
the present century. Men and women do not now cling 
as they did in the past to ancient superstitions and false 
opinions because they are ancient and hoary with age. 
Veritas est magna et prajvalebit. 



PREFACE. IX 

"Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to 
play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do inju- 
riously to misdoubt her strength; let her and falsehood 
grapple; whoever knew truth put to scorn in a free 
and open encounter?" So spake John Milton in his essay 
on the liberty of the press. 

Somebody recently reproached Prof. Max Muller for 
wasting his time on mythology. He replied: "All I can 
say is that this study gives me intense pleasure, and has 
been a real joy to me, all my life. I have toiled enough 
for others; may I not in the evening of my life follow 
my own taste?" 

What I have written in intervals of leisure I trust has 

not been a waste of time. 

John H. Stotsenburg. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



< 



PTER PAGE 

I. Doubts Raised as to Shaksper's Ability and Learning 1 

II. How to Reach the Truth About the Plays and Poems 12 

III. How Plays were Written in Shaksper's Time 27 

IV. William Shaksper has no Place in Henslowe's Diary . 39 
V. Shaksper Commended no Contemporary 48 

VI. Shaksper Left no Letters and Had no Library 55 

VII. Shaksper Gave his Children no Education 66 

VIII. Shaksper's Illiteracy Made Manifest by his Chirog- 

raphy 73 

Shaksper's Utter Indifference to Literary Proprieties 94 

Spenser's "Pleasant Willy" was not Shaksper 102 

Daniel's Letter to Egerton does not Refer to Shaksper 109 

Shaksper not the Shakescene of Robert Greene 116 

Lies Fabricated in Aid of the Shaksper Pretension. . 132 
The Conjectures and Guesses which make up the 

Shaksper Biography 139 

Shaksper's Real Name and Traditional Life 151 

The Plays were Written by a Protestant or Protes- 
tants 160 

"1 XVII. Shaksper, if Learned, Could Not have Written the — « 

Plays 174 

XVIII. The Learning of the Author or Authors of the Poems 

and Plays 186 

XIX. The Diverse Spellings of the Name 192 

XX. Floundering in the Broad Highway of the Plays. . . . 204 

J XXI. The Sonnets do not Lead to the True Shakespeare . . 212 

XXII. Philisides Wrote the Sonnets, and How Identified . . 232 

XXIII. The Venus and Adonis Test Explained 252 

XXIV. Venus and Adonis Phrases Repeated in the Plays. . . 262 
XXV. Francis Bacon Considered 284 



4 



1 IX. 

X. 

XL 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 
XVI. 



4 






*hsf) 



v*"*\ 



ryyj 



Xll 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGB 

XXVI. Thomas Dekker Considered 300 

XXVII. Michael Drayton Considered 324 

XXVIII. What the Dedications Show 348 

XXIX. Whither the Pathway of the Poems Leads 355 

XXX. Troilus and Cressida and The Taming of the Shrew 

Examined 371 

XXXI. Measure for Measure, Titus Andronicus, and Pericles 

Examined 386 

XXXII. Richard the Second and Julius Csesar Examined .... 406 

XXXIII. Henry the Sixth, Parts 1, 2, and 3, Examined 422 

XXXIV. Richard the Third and King John Examined 444 

XXXV. Henry the Eighth and The Two Gentlemen of Verona 

Examined 452 

XXXVI. The Falstaff Plays and the Comedy of Errors Con- 
sidered 461 

XXXVII. Hamlet and The Winter's Tale Considered 478 

XXXVIII. The Dramatic Romance of Cymbeline 491 

XXXIX. John Webster Found in the Plays 503 

XL. A Short Summing-up 510 



AN IMPARTIAL STUDY 

OF THE 

SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



CHAPTER I. 

DOUBTS RAISED AS TO SHAKSPER's ABILITY AND LEARNING. 

"Come, go along and see the truth hereof." 

—Taming of the Shrew, iv, 5. 

THE reading public will probably agree with me 
that if any one should show to the world by 
convincing proof, and beyond doubt or cavil, 
that some one, other than William Shaksper, the son of 
John and Mary Shaksper, was the author of the plays 
and poems now attributed to him, they would never- 
theless be always called and known, while the world 
lasts, as the Shakespeare plays and poems. Like the 
"No-Name Series "or the "Waverley Novels," they would 
be classified in literature as the original publishers classi- 
fied them. 

How then would the literary world be advantaged, if 
it could be clearly shown that the real authorship of the 
Shakespeare plays and poems should be rightfully ascribed 
to one man or to several collaborators, other than Shaksper, 
who have been hitherto unhonored and unsung? 

I answer that the world is helped when a wrong, literary 
or otherwise, is righted. Honor to whom honor is due. 
Whenever the scales of error fall from the eyes of the 



I THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

literati, the beauties of the great writers, dramatic and 
poetical, of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, who have 
been hitherto neglected and lost sight of, will be sought 
out and appreciated. " Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona 
multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles urguentur" ; and many 
good writers nourished in the days of the Eighth Henry, 
Elizabeth and James, who are now scarcely known, or if 
known at all, are not properly appreciated by the student of 
English literature. The Elizabethan era, particularly, was 
prolific of good poets and dramatists, and if the real facts 
as to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays could be 
elicited, the student of English literature would revel in 
fresh literary fields and pastures new. Let us take for an 
illustration the jolly, jail-environed Thomas Dekker, of 
whom Whipple, in his " Literature of the Age of Elizabeth" 
(alluding to a scene in the Virgin Martyr), says that "it 
is difficult to understand how a writer capable of such 
refinements as these should have left no drama which 
is a part of the classical literature of his country." This 
great poet is scarcely known by the readers of English 
poetry. 

And there, too, for illustration, is Anthony Monday, 
whom Meres, in his "Palladis Tamia," eulogizes as " our best 
plotter" in comedy and tragedy, and who was a great 
writer of good plays ; and yet his name is almost unknown 
in the history of English literature. 

Not long ago I wrote to a distinguished official of Lin- 
coln Cathedral to learn some facts as to the poet, Thomas 
Heywood, who was born in Lincolnshire — a man whom I 
regard as a great writer and prolific dramatist of the 
Elizabethan age, and whose comedies are avowedly 
intended to be pictures of contemporary English life, and, 



SHAKSPER S ABILITY AND LEARNING. 6 

to my surprise, this Lincolnshire scholar and dignitary of 
the church replied that he had never heard of him. 

If I shall write very radically about a man whose 
memory we have mistakenly revered from childhood, it is 
because I believe as Phillips Brooks did as to the state- 
ments of the early fathers, when he said that he revered 
them because they said so many good things that were 
true; his contention was not that what they said was 
true, because they were the fathers of the Church, but 
that they were the fathers of the Church because what 
they said was true. He reverenced authority, as expressed 
to him in an official statement, but he always asked, 
"Is this statement true, and if true, can it be verified? 
If it can be verified, then it is its own authority and 
we want no other. Is this alleged fact, a fact? If so, 
then it can bid the world defiance. Any number of 
bishops may fulminate against it, but it can challenge 
the whole world." 

It is no argument against Shaksper's authorship of the 
poems and plays that he was poor or that he was the son 
of poor and illiterate parents, or that his occupation in 
early life was humble, or that while young he was a 
poacher or deer-stealer, or that he married a woman eight 
years older than himself, or that he was unkind to her, 
or that he engaged in occasional sprees, or that he was 
litigious or licentious. A poor man, a bad man, a drunkard 
or a debauchee may write good poetry. If Shaksper 
wrote the plays and poems ascribed to him with all these 
encumbering faults and disadvantages, he is entitled to 
the very highest meed of praise. But if he did not write 
them, why should not this idol be pulled down and broken 
to pieces, even though it is covered with the gilding of 



4 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

centuries of undeserved praise? Why indeed, unless, as 
Dr. Holmes says, we like to worship false gods. In the 
following lines he tells us the exact truth about the mass 
of mankind: 

"An idol? Man was born to worship such. 
An idol is the image of his thoughts; 
Sometimes he carves it out of gleaming stone, 
And sometimes moulds it out of glittering gold, 
Or rounds it in a mighty frescoed dome, 
Or lifts it heavenward in a lofty spire, 
Or shapes it in a cunning frame of words, 
Or pays his priest to make it, day by day. 
For sense must have its god as well as soul. 
The time is racked with birthpangs. Every hour 
Brings forth some gasping truth ; and truth new born 
Looks a misshapen and untimely growth; 
The terror of the household and its shame, 
A monster coiling in its nurse's lap 
That some would strangle, some would only starve ; 
But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand, 
And suckled at a hundred half clad breasts, 
Comes slowly to its stature and its form ; 
Welcomed by all that curst its hour of birth, 
And folded in the same encircling arms 
That cast it like a serpent from their hold." 

Mortals are credulous; and legends and traditions, 
particularly those which fabricate miracles which never 
took place, or which create heavenly agents who never 
existed, take hold of men's minds with great power, to 
the exclusion of the truth, and especially so when the 
person who is to be exalted is of very humble origin. 

I have no harsh words for the great mass of the Shaksper 
idolaters. Having neither the time nor the desire perhaps 



shaksper's ability and learning. 5 

to investigate for themselves, they rely on the honesty of 
the Jaggard, Blount, Smithweeke, and Ashley syndicate 
of publishers, supplemented by the statements of Heminge 
and Condell and the superserviceable encomiums of Ben 
Jonson, supported also as they likewise are by the con- 
jectures and guesses of Malone and his blind followers. 
As to these idolaters, I apply the language of a great 
writer belonging to the century just closed, who said, with 
reference to this idol worship, "The negroes in the service 
of Mumbo Jumbo tattoo and drill themselves with burning 
skewers with great fortitude; and we read that the 
priests in the service of Baal gashed themselves and bled 
freely. You, who can smash the idols, do so with a good 
courage; but do not be too fierce with the idolaters — 
they worship the best thing they know." 

And so I say to the searchers after the truth, whether 
they are known as anti-Shaksperites, Baconians, or by 
any other name, "Be sure and smash the idol, Shaksper, 
if you can, with the powerful weapons of fact, before you 
attempt to set up any poetical divinity in his place." 

The first writer who, without intending to do so, 
actually cast a doubt about the Shaksper claim, was 
Richard Farmer, who, in 1767, wrote an essay on the 
learning of Shakespeare. He said in his preface: "It is 
indeed strange that any real friends of our immortal poet 
should be still willing to force him into a situation which 
is not tenable; treat him as a learned man, and what 
shall excuse the most gross violations of history, chronol- 
ogy and geography ? » Thereupon he undertakes to prove 
that Shaksper, although not a learned man nor skilled in 
languages, was able to borrow from translations of Greek 
and Latin authors. 



6 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

If Dr. Farmer had been an expert in chirography, and 
if his attention had been called to the wretched hand- 
writing of Shaksper, as displayed in his signature to his 
mortgage, his deed and last will, he never would have 
attempted to show that a man with little or rather no 
learning could have ever used books containing trans- 
lations into English from the dead or foreign languages. 
It may be said in this connection that it is remarkable 
that no notice whatever had been taken by the literary 
world of the illiteracy clearly manifested in the autographs 
of Shaksper until William Henry Smith of London, Eng- 
land, and William H. Burr of Washington, D. C, invited 
public attention to it. 

The next writer who brought in plain and lucid lan- 
guage before the world the question of the right of William 
Shaksper to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays and 
poems, was Joseph C. Hart. He was the first public 
disputer and denier of the Shaksper title. 

In the year 1848, Harper and Brothers published a 
book called "The Romance of Yachting," written, as 
stated therein, by Joseph C. Hart, the author of " Miriam 
Coffin," in which he maintained that William Shaksper of 
Stratford-on-Avon did not write the plays, and that he was 
merely the owner of all the properties of the theatre which 
included the plays possessed by the establishment, and 
that the plays were written by poorly paid collaborators. 
I have not been able to find a copy of Hart's book, but I 
give an extract from it, transcribed from a pamphlet 
issued in 1888 and written by General J. Watts de Peyster, 
entitled, "Was the Shakespeare after all a Myth ?": 

"Of Shaksper's youth, we know nothing, says one 
commentator. Of Shaksper's last years, we know abso- 



shaksper's ability and learning. 7 

lutely nothing, says another commentator. The whole, 
however, says Chalmers, commenting upon the labored 
attempts of Rowe, Malone and Steevens to follow Shaksper 
in his career, is unsatisfactory. Shaksper, in his private 
character, in his friendship, in his amusements, in his 
closet, in his family, is nowhere before us. 

"Yet, notwithstanding all this mystery and the absence 
of any positive information, learned and voluminous com- 
mentators and biographers, in great numbers, have been 
led to suppose and assert a thousand things in regard to 
Shaksper's history, pursuits and attainments, which can 
not be substantiated by a particle of proof. Among these 
is the authorship of the plays grouped under his name 
which they assume as his for a certainty and beyond 
dispute. This egregious folly is beginning to re-act upon 
those who have been engaged in it, and some of them are 
placed in a very ridiculous position. 

"A writer in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia undertakes 
to give us the history of his family, from which I gather 
that John Shaksper, the father of William, was very poor 
and very illiterate, notwithstanding what the ambitious 
commentators may say to the contrary. So says Lardner, 
and he proves it beyond dispute. The coat of arms and 
the heraldry obtained for the family afterwards, was pro- 
cured by fraud, and was pronounced discreditable to the 
so-called bard, who had a hand in it. But the poverty of 
the family is nothing in this case except to show that 
William Shaksper must necessarily have been an unedu- 
cated boy. He grew up in ignorance and viciousness and 
became a common poacher. And the latter title, in 
literary matters, he carried to his grave. He was not the 
mate of the literary characters of the day, and no one knew 



8 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

it better than himself. It is a fraud upon the world to 
thrust his surreptitious fame upon us. He had none that 
was worthy of being transmitted. The inquiry will be, 
Who were the able literary men who wrote the dramas 
imputed to him ? " 

In commenting on Hart's statement, de Peyster aptly 
says: "Conceding that Shaksper was a miracle of intuitive 
force, such a gift would not have conferred knowledge or 
science, the inevitable result of studies and opportunities, 
which latter did not then exist. It almost seems ridiculous 
to talk about the writings of any man, when not a line of 
his has come down to us, and not a word, except his own 
signature. Is it a matter of possibility or probability that 
if Shaksper wrote so well in every sense of the word and 
such a vast amount, that no manuscript of his, good, bad 
or indifferent, has been preserved, when the writings of so 
many men of far lesser note, conceding any greatness to 
Shaksper, should not only exist but abound ? 

" In the works reputed to Shaksper are thoughts almost 
actually, textually taken from Chaucer, Sidney, Lord Vere 
(notably the gravedigger's song in Hamlet), Beaumont and 
Fletcher (the witches' incantation in Macbeth), Montaigne, 
Bacon, Marlowe and others." 

If any writer, devoid of bias and free from prejudice, 
possessed of sufficient means and pleasant manners, with 
proper introductions, leisure and power of investigation 
and analysis, the master of a clear and agreeable style, 
would go to England and examine every source of infor- 
mation and authority, and then communicate nothing else 
but facts to the world, then indeed those interested in the 
subject might have something worthy of the title of a 
biography of the real Shakespeare. As it is, the actuality 



shaksper's ability and learning. 9 

of the Shakespearean story holds the same proportion to 
legend or tradition, sentiment, gush, probability or possi- 
bility, that Falstaff's half penny worth of bread did to the 
two gallons of sack, the capon sauce and anchovies after a 
supper costing 10 s 10 d, which led Prince Henry to exclaim, 
" monstrous ! but one half penny worth of bread to this 
intolerable deal of sack." 

Following Hart, two writers entered the field of dis- 
cussion, each claiming that Francis Bacon was the author 
of the plays. 

One of them, William Henry Smith, in his book entitled 
" Bacon and Shakespeare," says that " prior to the year 
1611, a number of plays, tragedies, comedies, and his- 
tories, of various degrees of merit, were produced of which 
William Shakespeare was reported to be the author, and 
which undoubtedly were, in some way, the property of the 
company of actors of which he was an active member. 
Not one single manuscript has ever been found to identify 
Shaksper as the author of these productions ; nor is there, 
among all the records and traditions handed down to us, 
any statement that he was ever seen writing or producing 
a manuscript; nor that he ever claimed as his own any 
of the excellent, or repudiated (as unworthy of him) any 
of the worthless productions presented to the public in 
his name. He seems at no time to have had any personal 
or peculiar interest in them; both during and after his 
life they seem to have been the property of the stage and 
published by the players, doubtless according to their 
notions of acceptability with the visitants of the theatre." 

The other writer, Delia Bacon, claimed that the plays 
were imbued with the letter and spirit of the Baconian 
philosophy. 



10 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

After these came Appleton Morgan, a gifted and care- 
ful writer, who, in his "Shakespearean Myth," has sent out 
a pressing summons to scholars and students of literature 
to examine disinterestedly and judicially the Shaksper 
claim. His work is an attempt (and a very learned and 
powerful attempt) to examine from purely external evi- 
dence a question which, dating only within the last 
twenty-five years, is constantly recurring to confront 
investigation and which, like Banquo's shade, seems alto- 
gether indisposed to down. 

One of the most learned doubters, who if he had con- 
fined himself to the discussion of the single issue of the 
validity or invalidity of the Shaksper claim, would have 
excited an immense influence upon public opinion in favor 
of his theory, was the late Ignatius Donnelly. His argu- 
ment against the ability of William Shaksper to write the 
plays, contained in the first part of his work, called the 
Cryptogram, is very powerful, clear, and convincing. 

I must also include Richard Grant White in the list of 
doubters, for although he was an advocate for Shaksper, 
yet he was uncertain and unsettled in his opinion. Who 
but a doubter could have written the following: 

" Unlike Dante, unlike Milton, unlike Goethe, unlike 
the great poets and tragedians of Greece and Rome, 
Shakespeare left no trace upon the political or even the 
social life of his era. Of his eminent countrymen, Raleigh, 
Sidney, Spenser, Bacon, Cecil, Walsingham, Coke, Camden, 
Drake, Hobbes, Inigo Jones, Herbert of Cherbury, Laud, 
Pym, Hampden, Selden, Walton, Wotton, and Donne may 
be properly reckoned as his contemporaries; and yet 
there is no proof whatever that he was personally 
known to either of these men or to any others of less 



shaksper's ability and learning. 11 

note among the statesmen, scholars, soldiers and artists 
of his day." 

Such a statement justifies me in classing White among 
the doubters. 

When I began at short intervals of leisure to examine 
the subject, it seemed to me that the inquiry logically 
divided itself into two heads; the first being, " Did Wil- 
liam Shaksper write the plays and poems attributed to 
him?" and the second being, "If he did not, who did?" 
While working from time to time on these two proposi- 
tions, I discovered that William H. Edwards of Coalburgh, 
West Virginia, had prepared a book called "Shaksper not 
Shakespeare," on that part of the same subject which is 
embraced in the first proposition and which relates to the 
plays only, and therefore the only excuse which I can give 
to the public for any attempt to throw light upon the 
question of the authorship of the plays and poems is that 
I have broadened the scope of the inquiry so as to embrace 
the poems and have treated the subject in a different 
manner from that followed by Mr. Edwards in his learned 
and able contribution. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW TO REACH THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 

"Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth 
To the end of reckoning." 

—Measure for Measure, v, 1. 

That the plays were called the Shakespeare plays raises 
a slight presumption in Shaksper's favor. It is, however, 
very slight indeed, because, first, as will hereafter be dis- 
cussed and shown, the name used was not Shaksper's 
name; and because, secondly, everybody of literary taste 
knows that authors and poets very often conceal their 
names. Some of the best pieces of prose and poetry, 
which, if the authors were known, would have immor- 
talized them, are anonymous gems. We do not know, so 
far as the real author's statements or admissions are con- 
cerned, who Junius was. When Waverley entranced the 
men and women of England, Sir Walter Scott was hiding 
behind the novel, and although book after book of war 
and love and knightly prowess came to the thirsty people 
as refreshing showers come to the parched earth, the 
glory of the authorship was not revealed; and the real 
writer was not the one whom the multitudes or the know- 
ing critics and commentators honored; neither would 
Scott have been found out at all, had not the bankruptcy 
of his publishers compelled him to step before the curtain. 
Scott's reasons may seem peculiar to some, and yet they 
were rational enough. He says in his general preface: 
"Great anxiety was expressed to know the name of the 
author, but on this no authentic information could be 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 13 

obtained. My original motive for publishing the work 
anonymously was the consciousness that it was an experi- 
ment on the public taste which might very probably fail," 
and again he says, " I am sorry I can give little satisfac- 
tion to the queries on this subject. I have already stated 
elsewhere that I can render little better reason for choosing 
to remain anonymous than by saying, with Shylock, that 
such was my humor. Another advantage was connected 
with the secrecy which I observed. I could appear or 
retreat from the stage at pleasure. In my own person 
also as a successful author in another department of 
literature I might have been charged with too frequent 
intrusions on the public patience; but the author of 
Waverley was in this respect as impassable to the critic 
as the ghost of Hamlet to the partisan of Marcellus." 

I have said that a poor man, a bad man, a drunkard, 
or a debauchee may write good poetry, and a man who 
has not very much learning may likewise do so. Robert 
Burns, one of Britain's greatest poets, was not a scholar 
versed in the classics, and he could write of pretty maids, 
banks and braes, fireside scenes and simple, homely, 
heart-touching things, but he could not write of the great 
men and women, states and cities of antiquity, nor of the 
heroes and gods of mythology. They were strangers to 
him. John Bunyan was no great scholar, yet he pro- 
duced a book which, without any trace of great learning 
therein, contains a display of the imaginative faculty so 
bewitching as to draw all scholarly men and women to 
the " Pilgrim's Progress " as a model of simplicity and clear- 
ness. Learning may be piled on genius and it will make 
the recipient a king, aye every inch a king; but learning 
can not be extracted out of genius by any human process; 



14 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

and as for the supernatural in aid of a poet or historian 
or novelist, nothing very reliable can be expected from 
the ghosts of the departed. 

The learned author of a book lately issued from the 
London press, entitled "Is it Shakespeare?" very aptly 
says as to genius, at page 126: "Genius can do much, but 
it is far from being able to make a man omnibus numeris 
absolutus or ' complete ' in the sense that Shakespeare was. 
Genius alone can undoubtedly lift a man to a purer and 
a larger aether than ordinary mortals can breathe in. In- 
stances are numerous enough in the annals of many a 
cottage home and lowly birthplace, but these self-same 
favored mortals, even if, as with Milton, they could hope 
to soar 

'Above the flight of Pegasean wing,' 

still would find that their wings of genius are sadly clipped, 
confined, and weakened unless they are taught to rise and 
fly by the knowledge that is in books and by the varied 
wisdom that has descended from the ages of the past. 
Without these helps they may indeed rise somewhat from 
the brute earth of ordinary humanity, but they will never 
be able to make those glorious circling swoops in the lofty 
circumambient air which are ever the wonder of the earth- 
bound crowd below, the marvel of an admiring world." 

The writers whose works will show a knowledge, gram- 
matically set forth, of theology, history, medicine, geology, 
botany, philosophy, finance, or the languages, or all of 
them, must have been students. Spenser, Sidney, Mar- 
lowe, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Byron, Wordsworth, 
Southey, Campbell, Scott, and Tennyson were all trained 
and educated men. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 15 

King Henry describes the complete man when, in 
Henry VIII, Act 1, Scene 2, he says of Buckingham: 

"The gentleman is learned, and a most rare speaker; 
To nature none more bound; his training such, 
That he may furnish and instruct great teachers, 
And never seek for aid out of himself." 

One of the best definitions of a poet is given by Thomas 
Dekker inhis"Satiro-mastix" :"True poetsarewith art and 
nature crowned." No one, I take it, but a scholar or 
coterie of scholars could have written the Shakespeare 
poems and plays. 

Did William Shaksper write them? If not, who did? 
I think that every student and admirer of the plays and 
poems will agree with me that the proper way to arrive 
at the truth is, first of all, to discuss and settle the ques- 
tion of Shaksper's right to the authorship, without refer- 
ence to the claims set up for any one else; and when it 
has been fairly shown to the world beyond a reasonable 
doubt that William Shaksper could not have written the 
works for which he has so long received credit, the other 
question as to who wrote them can be better and more 
easily solved. 

I do not expect to please, persuade, or convince the 
prejudiced reader by my attempt to remove the idol, 
Shaksper, from his unmerited throne. As Hawthorne 
beautifully expressed it, the first feeling of every reader 
must be one of absolute repugnance toward the person 
who seeks to tear out of the Anglo-Saxon heart the name 
which for ages it has held dearest, and to substitute 
another name or names to which the settled belief of the 
world has long assigned a very different position. The 



16 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the plays of 
Shakespeare so called, hold the first place in the affections 
of the English-speaking people; and although it is one 
thing to love a book and quite another to question its 
authorship, the multitude will not appreciate the dis- 
tinction. 

Another learned writer, who has thoroughly exposed 
the Shaksper fraud, expressed the common feeling when 
he wrote that " if an archangel from the Empyrean should 
write a book doubting the complete Shakespearean pro- 
duction of the Shakespeare plays, the book reviewers 
(and they are the best that money will secure) would say 
to a man that that archangel was a dolt and an idiot or 
at least ignorant, misguided, and beyond his depth." 

When Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill before the 
Epicureans and Stoics, and boldly proclaimed the God 
who was unknown to the Athenians, and the doctrine of 
the resurrection of the dead, some mocked and all dis- 
believed, except the woman Damaris and a few others. 
Paul, in his bold and resolute way, ran counter to the 
received and fashionable belief. But Damaris has many 
sympathizers with her now, and the Christian minister 
can say with Hamlet, of those learned philosophers, 
"Where be your gibes now?" Reformers and iconoclasts 
are cranks and maniacs in the eyes of conservatives and 
aristocrats. Much learning has made them mad. Men 
and women must not run counter to cherished dogmas. 
Nevertheless, the truth is not made by majorities. If 
that were so, Mohammed or Buddha might be the true 
Savior and Jesus an impostor. Universality of belief even 
does not consecrate a lie. If it did, our writers, teachers, 
and parents would restore to his lost place in history that 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 17 

other adored William — the archer patriot, so sweet to our 
boyhood days — that brave William Tell, who seemed 
once to be as firmly fixed in history as the snow-clad 
Alps and as immortal as the spirit of liberty that dwells 
among them. But alas! William Tell was a fraud and a 
lie. If it did, Pope Joan would be restored to the list of 
Roman pontiffs, and the Protestant Reformation would 
not have wiped out a lie once so generally believed. Yes, 
if it did, the reader and I, if then living, would have been 
educated to fraternize with the Inquisition and would 
have thought it no crime to force Galileo on his knees to 
renounce the sublime truths of his scientific creed. 

Many persons, without special examination, accept 
William Shaksper as the author of the plays and poems 
upon the belief that he was different from all other men 
in that he possessed supernatural powers; that, without 
education, application to study and training, he, William 
Shaksper, was gifted with the faculty of knowing intui- 
tively everything worth knowing in literature, history, 
science, and art, through the intervention of some super- 
human or divine authority. There is an instance recorded 
in Holy Writ of the very natural surprise of the Jews, 
when the Carpenter's Son went into the temple and taught 
the people, causing them to exclaim, "How knoweth this 
man letters, having never learned?" On that occasion 
the Jews, not recognizing the God-man, expressed the 
true view as to a mere man; but there is no instance in 
the history of the world where a man, without learning 
and barely able to write his name, was proficient in the 
arts and sciences and in the knowledge of those governing 
principles in nature and man's relation to his fellow man 
which can only be acquired by careful and persistent study. 



18 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

If to-day in any of our Courts of Justice the question 
should arise as to the ability of a man named William 
Shaksper to write thousands upon thousands of pages of 
manuscript such as only a learned man can write, and a 
sample of his handwriting, made at the age of forty years, 
was produced for examination, the facsimile thereof, 
taken from Malone's "Inquiry," a Shaksperite authority, 
being as set out at the end of this sentence, any unpreju- 
diced judge or jury of experts would pronounce the signa- 
ture that of a very illiterate man. 



An experienced and well-read lawyer would put on his 
spectacles, and after carefully examining the writing 
would address the court as follows : " Your Honor, this 
facsimile at first reminded me of what the Scottish advo- 
cate, Paulus Pleydell, said to Guy Mannering when the 
note from Meg Merrilies was put into his hands for exami- 
nation, ' A vile, miserable scrawl indeed, and the letters are 
uncial or semiuncial, as somebody calls your large text 
hand, and in size and perpendicularity resemble the ribs 
of a roasted pig ' ; but upon consideration I am inclined 
to the opinion that I can more truthfully apply to this 
wretched writing what Dickens said of the note received 
by Mrs. Tibbs from Mrs. Bloss, 'The writing looks like a 
skein of thread in a tangle.' It surely shows that Shaksper 
was an illiterate fellow." 

The doctor of divinity or of medicine, examining that 
signature, would say, "I must admit that this specimen 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 19 

of handwriting strongly militates against the claim for 
Shaksper. The letters of the surname are so far apart 
and so badly formed that they show that the writer was 
very illiterate and unaccustomed to writing. If what 
you have shown me is a facsimile of Shaksper's hand- 
writing, he was not scholar enough to write a play of any 
kind and the world has been imposed upon." 

A school teacher or college professor would say, "That 
is the signature of a man whose education has been grossly 
neglected. The person whose handwriting is now shown 
to me can barely write his name." 

A business man would say, "I do not want that man 
as my clerk or bookkeeper or sales agent. His signature 
shows clearly to me that he lacks education and learning." 

An editor and newspaper reporter would say, "The 
fellow who made that signature is not fit for article writing 
or reporting. He is evidently an ignoramus, though- he 
may be smart enough in driving bargains and money 
making. The man who can not write his name at all, or 
who can write it with difficulty, may be able to gather in 
the shekels, but he is not fit for newspaper reporting, essay 
writing, or editorials." 

A county clerk, if called upon to give his opinion, 
would say, "As the clerk of the courts of my county, I 
have for several years, both in open court and in my 
office, witnessed the operation of affixing their signatures to 
documents by litigants or witnesses, both men and women. 
When they are putting their names to affidavits, deeds, 
mortgages, or other papers or instruments required to be 
signed, I have noticed that those who can hardly write 
their names take a great deal of time about the transac- 
tion, working at the formation of the letters as if it were 



20 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

a painful and laborious task. Speaking from the stand- 
point of my experience as clerk, I would say that the 
man who wrote the original of the facsimile now shown 
to me labored very much over the making of the signa- 
ture, and it was all that he could do to write his name. 
He did not even know how to form the letters of his 
surname. I should regard him as having been an un- 
learned man." 

Indeed, I would be willing to submit the whole question 
of authorship to a jury composed of all the living leading 
writers in behalf of the Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon, 
not omitting Mr. Sidney Lee, Mr. Hamilton Mabie, and 
Mr. James Walter, on condition that all other questions 
are to be eliminated and that they are to give their ver- 
dict upon the single issue of the ability of the man who 
wrote the signatures to the deed, mortgage, and will to 
write the thirty-seven plays, called the Shakespeare plays, 
containing over twenty-one thousand words. I feel sure 
that, divesting themselves of prejudice, after inspecting 
the signatures and listening to the testimony of disinter- 
ested experts in handwriting, and after hearing the argu- 
ments of learned advocates who have studied the hand- 
writing, such for instance as William H. Burr and William 
H. Edwards, their unanimous verdict would be against 
the title of the man who made those signatures. This 
important matter of Shaksper's handwriting will be con- 
sidered more at length in a subsequent chapter. 

I will cite here some unassailable and unimpeachable 
authorities in support of my position that learning is 
acquired by study and not by inspiration, and I guarantee 
that the unprejudiced reader will agree with me that the 
following authorities are more reliable than the dicta of 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 21 

all the guessing Shakespearean commentators from Malone 
to Mabie: 

" thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou 
look! 
Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in 
a book." 

— Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 2, 24. 

" Ignorance is the curse of God, 
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." 

—Second Henry VI, iv, 7, 78. 

"The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance." 

— Tro. and Cressida, ii, 3, 31. 

" My years are young, 
And fitter is my study and my books." 

—First Henry VI, v, 1, 22. 

" Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, 
That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks." 

— Love's Labor's Lost, i, 1, 84. 

"He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one." 

—Henry VIII, iv, 2, 58. 

"My father charged you in his will to give me good 
education; 
You have trained me like a peasant." 

—As You Like It, i, 1, 71. 

"To you I am bound for life and education." 

—Othello, i, 3, 182. 

" She in beauty, education, blood, 
Holds hand with any princess of the world." 

—King John, ii, 1, 493. 

"I have those hopes of her good that her education 
promises." 

-All's Well, i, 1,46. 



22 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"My library was dukedom large enough." 

—Tempest, i, 2, 109. 

" Schoolmasters will I keep within my house, 
Fit to instruct her youth." 

—Taming of the Shrew, i, 1, 95. 

"His training such, 
That he may furnish and instruct great teachers." 

—Henry VIII, i, 2, 112. 

"Well, God give them wisdom that have it; andjthose 
that are fools, 
Let them use their talents." 

—Twelfth Night, i, 5, 14. 

" Even so our houses and ourselves and children 
Have lost, or do not learn for want of time, 
The sciences that should become our country." 

—Henry V, v, 2, 56. 

" I will be very kind, and liberal 
To mine own children in good bringing up." 

—Taming of the Shrew, i, 1, 96. 

"My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report 
speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me 
rustically at home." 

—As You Like It, i, 1, 6. 

"Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of 
the realm in erecting a grammar school." 

—Second Henry VI, iv, 7, 37. 

Passing from the authority of the writers of the plays, 
which no one of the Shakespearean commentators can 
successfully impeach, I cite the opinions of the most cele- 
brated writers : 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 23 

"The mind is the man and the knowledge of the mind. 
A man is but what he knoweth." 

—Bacon, vol. ii, p. 123. 

" The mind of man is this world's true dimension, 
And knowledge is the measure of the mind." 

—Lord Brooke. 

" By knowledge, we do learn ourselves to know, 
And what to man, and what to God we owe." 

—Spenser. 

"Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are 
formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and 
polishing." 

—Montaigne. 

"Aristotle was asked how much educated men were 
superior to those uneducated. 'As much,' said he, 'as the 
living are to the dead.'" 

— Laertius. 

"It was a saying of his that education was an orna- 
ment in prosperity and a refuge in adversity." 

—Ibid. 

"By labor and intent study (my position in this life) r 
joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might per- 
haps leave something so written to after times, as they 
should not willingly let it die." 

—Milton. 

"The heights by great men reached and kept, 
Were not attained by sudden flight, 
But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night." 

— Longfellow. 

"Whoso neglects learning in his youth loses the past 
and is dead for the future." 

—Euripides. 



24 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"It is only the ignorant who despise education." 

— Publius Syrus. 

"Man is the only one that knows nothing, that can learn 
nothing without being taught." 

—Pliny. 

" That place that does 
Contain my books, the best companions, is 
To me a glorious court, where hourly I 
Converse with the old sages and philosophers." 

—Fletcher. 

"A wise man will hear and increase learning." 

—Proverbs, i, 5. 

The necessity of education is illustrated in the first 
chapter of the Book of Daniel, verses 3 to 6. 

The only adverse authority which I can find, and which 
comes directly in point in favor of those who believe that 
William Shaksper was a natural-born poet, is in Much 
Ado About Nothing, in Dogberry's charge to Neighbor 
Sea-Coale (hi, 3, 9): 

" Come hither, neighbor Sea-Coale. God hath blest you 
with a good name: to be a well-favored man is the gift 
of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature." 

Of course, if it can be shown by facts outside of the 
Shakespeare plays and poems themselves that William 
Shaksper, of Stratford-on-Avon, obtained by training 
such an education as would enable him to write any or 
all of the plays and poems now credited to him, his title 
thereto would not be questioned; but where the facts 
and presumptions are all the other way, it is but proper 
and right that these facts and presumptions should be 
stated and considered. Sooner or later, mankind will 
arrive at the truth as to the authorship. 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PLAYS AND POEMS. 25 

It is unfortunate that Thomas Hey wood never com- 
pleted and published his lives of the poets of his time. 
The editor of his plays, in his memoir of Thomas Hey- 
wood, says at page 41 : " We have evidence that Heywood 
was for many years engaged upon a collection of the lives 
of poets of his own day and country, as well as of other 
times and nations." It would, of course, have included 
Shakespeare and his dramatic predecessors and contem- 
poraries; and it is possible that the manuscript or part 
of it may yet lurk in some unexplored receptacle. Richard 
Braithwaite, in his " Scholars' Medley," 1614, gave the ear- 
liest information of Heywood's intention to make " a descrip- 
tion of all poets' lives " ; and ten years afterward, in his nine 
books of various history concerning women, Heywood 
himself tells us that his title of the projected work would 
be, "The Lives of all the Poets, modern and foreign." 
It was still in progress in 1635, when the "Hierarchie of 
the Blessed Angells" appeared; on page 245 of which work 
we meet with the following passage: "In proceeding 
further, I might have forestalled a work which hereafter 
(I hope) by God's assistance, to commit to the public 
view, namely, the Lives of all the Poets, fooreine and 
moderne, from the first before Homer to the Novissimi 
and last, of what nation or language soever." 

It would be a valuable contribution to the history of 
English literature if, in some old chest or in some closet in 
some old English home, that manuscript could be found. 
It might explain beyond possibility of denial or contra- 
diction who the "Mellifluous Shake-speare," as Heywood 
puts the name, really was. While Heywood's manuscript 
may never be found, it may be that there exists some- 
where in England written evidence which will yet con- 



26 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

vince the world of the utter foolishness of the Shaksper 
claim. Possibly, too, there may yet be found in some 
desk or drawer or unused receptacle in some one or more 
of England's homes, some paper or document that may 
throw light on the authorship of one or more of the poems 
and plays now to be examined. 

In such investigations and examinations the diligent 
searcher for the truth as to the Shakespeare plays may 
yet be rewarded. The play of John a Kent and John 
a Comber was found among the papers of the ancient 
family of the Mostyns and fell under the notice of Sir 
Frederic Madden, the principal keeper of the manuscripts 
in the British Museum. The play of first Henry the 
Fourth was found in 1841 by the Rev. Lambert B. Larking, 
Vicar of Ryash, in the muniment room of the ancient seat 
of the Derings at Surrenden. There is no reason why 
careful searches may not yet bring their reward to the 
seeker after the truth in the important matter of the 
Shakespeare authorship. 



CHAPTER III. 

HOW PLAYS WEKE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER's TIME. 

"A truth's a truth; the rogues are marvelous poor." 

—All's Well, iv, 3. 

Very few persons either in Great Britain or America 
know either how or by whom plays were generally written 
between the years 1590 and 1610, the interval during 
which the poems and plays appeared. It is taken for 
granted that writers of plays wrote then as they do now, 
each for himself, and that rights in the play and its publi- 
cation were reserved to them. But by whom and how 
they were written between the above dates is not a matter 
of conjecture or supposition at all; and hence if we under- 
stand the custom of the times in that regard, we shall 
get some light at least on the authorship of the Shakes- 
peare plays. The principal writers of plays in and near 
Shaksper's time were Francis Beaumont, Richard Brome, 
George Chapman, Henry Chettle, Samuel Daniel, John 
Day, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, John Fletcher, 
Richard Hathaway, William Haughton, Thomas Hey- 
wood, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, 
Thomas Middleton, Anthony Monday, Thomas Nash, 
Henry Porter, William Rankins, Samuel Rowley, Martin 
Slater, Wentworth Smyth, Anthony Wadeson, John Web- 
ster, and Robert Wilson. These dramatists generally 
wrote, not individually, but by a system of collaboration. 
Some of them were actors as well as dramatists, and they 
were all poor in pocket and very often bound by contract 
or in a manner enslaved to the proprietor of the theatre. 



28 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Henslowe's Diary shows not only the number of times 
that different plays were represented and generally the 
day when they were first acted, but it shows sometimes 
also who wrote the plays, the dates of their composition, 
and it often gives the names of all of those who had a 
hand in their authorship. This Philip Henslowe was a 
joint proprietor with Edmund Alleyn in the Rose Theatre, 
the Hope Theatre, the Fortune Theatre, and one in New- 
ington Butts and Paris Garden. It is true that Henslowe's 
writing was not very good and that of his clerk not much 
better, and that neither of them could spell correctly; 
but nevertheless Henslowe has removed the dust which 
blinded the eyes of some of the most learned commenta- 
tors and compelled them to be a little more conservative 
and careful in their guesses as to authorship. 

August Wilhelm von Schlegel delivered a course of 
lectures on dramatic poetry in 1808 and obtained high 
celebrity for them on the continent. Madame de Stael 
said of them that " every opinion formed by the author, 
every epithet given to the writers of whom he speaks, is 
beautiful and just, concise and animated." 

Speaking of Sir John Oldcastle, a play printed in 1600 
with the name of William Shakespeare as the author on 
the title page, in connection with the plays of Thomas 
Lord Cromwell and A Yorkshire Tragedy, Schlegel said, 
" The three last pieces are not only unquestionably Shakes- 
peare's but, in my opinion, they deserve to be classed 
among his best and maturest works. Thomas Lord 
Cromwell and Sir John Oldcastle are biographical dramas 
and in this species they are models. The first, by its 
subject, attaches itself to Henry the Eighth, and the second 
to Henry the Fifth. Still farther there has been ascribed 



HOW PLAYS WERE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER'S TIME. 29 

to him the Merry Devil of Edmonton, a comedy in one 
act, printed in Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays. This 
has certainly some appearance in its favor. It contains 
a merry landlord, who bears great similarity to the one in 
the Merry Wives of Windsor." All of this was written 
without knowledge of the discovery of Henslowe's Diary 
in the library of Dulwich College. The Diary was printed 
in 1841 by the Shakespeare Society, and on page 158 
thereof occurs the following entry : 

"This 16 of October 99 [meaning 1599] Received by 
me of Philip Henslow to pay Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton 
and Mr. Wilson and Hathway for the first prte of the 
lyfe of Sir John Oldcastell and in earnest of the second 
prte, for the use of the company ten pounds. I say 
received." Farther along, on page 236 of the Diary, is 
the following entry : 

"Lent unto the companye, the 17 of Auguste 1602 to 
pay unto Thomas Deckers, for new adicyons in Ouldcaselle 
the some of xxxx s." 

The learned commentator, Schlegel, was therefore 
decidedly mistaken in saying that the play of Sir John 
Oldcastle was " unquestionably Shakespeare's and among 
his best and maturest works." Four dramatists com- 
posed it, viz : Anthony Monday, Michael Drayton, Robert 
Wilson, and Richard Hathaway. Thomas Dekker made 
additions to it. Schlegel was also mistaken as to the 
Merry Devil of Edmonton. That play was written by 
Michael Drayton. 

In this connection it is amusing to read the satirical 
comment of Symonds in his "Shakespeare's Predecessors," 
page 390: "The names at least of Lord Cromwell and Sir 
John Oldcastle" he says, "must remain as danger signals 



30 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

upon the quicksands of oracular criticism. Schlegel 
fathered Oldcastle on Shakespeare." 

This blunder of Schlegel is not, however, without its 
compensatory aids to the discovery of the truth. He has 
connected the names of Drayton and Dekker with the 
Shakespeare mystery in such a way as to deserve careful 
examination and investigation of the literary ability of 
these two poets by scholars and commentators. It will 
be here noted, as above stated, that there are copies of 
the play of Sir John Oldcastle printed in 1600 with the 
name of William Shakespeare on the title page as author. 
Whether William Shaksper knew this or not is not very 
important, but it is clear that the playwriters, Monday, 
Drayton, Wilson, and Hathaway, and the play reviser 
and dresser, Thomas Dekker, knew that their play went 
abroad under a name similar to that of William Shaksper 
and that Shaksper had no more to do with its composi- 
tion than the reader has. 

The Diary also discloses another fact in illustration, 
not merely of the practice of collaboration, but also in 
settlement of the question of authorship of another play 
wrongly attributed to Shaksper. I give the entries just 
as they appear. On page 147 occurs the following: 
"Lent unto Thomas Dounton, to lende unto Mr. Dickers 
and Harey Cheattell, in earneste of ther boocke called 
Troyeles and Creassedaye the some of 3 pounds Aprell 7 
day 1599." Following that entry is another confirma- 
tory one, "Lent unto Harey Cheattell and Mr. Dickers, 
in prte of payment of ther boocke called Troyelles and 
Cresseda the 16 of Aprell 1599, xxs." 

These remarkable entries not only refute the Shakes- 
pearean claim to the authorship of Troilus and Cressida, 



HOW PLAYS WERE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER'S TIME. 31 

but the collaboration of two men in its composition tallies 
exactly with the opinion of the leading commentators 
that one part of the play of Troilus and Cressida is alto- 
gether different in style and method from the other part. 
Even the careless reader of the play of Troilus and Cressida 
will notice the difference in the style and composition of 
parts of the play, naturally evidencing that it was the work 
of more than one writer. These remarkable entries as to 
Troilus and Cressida will be further considered in a sub- 
sequent chapter, when the play is examined. 

But a much stronger instance of collaboration, and one 
which has a bearing on the question of the authorship of 
the Shakespeare plays, is recorded on page 221 of the 
Diary. I copy it verbatim: "Lent unto the companye, 
the 22 of May 1602 to give unto Antoney Monday and 
Mikell Drayton, Webester Mydelton and the Rest, in 
earnest of a boocke called Sesers Falle the some of five 
pounds." Collier, the editor of the Diary, adds the follow- 
ing note: "Malone passed over this important entry 
without notice; it shows that in May 1602, four poets, 
who are named, viz: Monday, Drayton, Webster, and 
Middleton, and some others not named, were engaged in 
writing a play upon the subject of the fall of Caesar." 

This entry will be considered and discussed hereafter 
in connection with the play of Julius Caesar as published 
in the Folio of 1623. 

When Thomas Heywood wrote the play of the English 
Traveler, he stated, in the address to the reader, that the 
play was one "among two hundred and twenty, in which 
I have had either an entire hand or at the least a main 
finger." He further states as to these plays of his "that 
many of them by shifting and change of companies have 



32 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

been negligently lost. Others of them are still retained 
in the hands of some actors, who think it against their 
peculiar profit to have them come into print." 

Even the surly and captious Ben Jonson, who insisted 
on sticking closely to the unities, was a collaborator with 
Chapman and Marston in the composition of the comedy 
of Eastward Hoe, and he states in an introduction to the 
play of Sejanus that as it appeared upon the stage "a 
second pen had a good hand in it." In the appendix to 
the Hamlet of the Variorum Shakespeare of Furness, at 
page 7 of the second volume, there is a complete corrob- 
oration of my assertion of fact as to how plays were written 
in Shaksper's time. The editor says: 

" Just as Malone's edition of 1790 was issuing from the 
press, there was found at Dulwich College a large folio 
manuscript volume, containing valuable information re- 
specting theatrical affairs from the year 1591 to 1609. 
The volume is in the handwriting of Philip Henslowe, a 
proprietor or joint lessee of more than one theatre during 
that period, and contains, among others, his account of 
receipts and expenditures in connection with his theatrical 
management. Malone reprinted copious extracts from 
this manuscript in the first volume of his edition; but it 
was reprinted entire by the Shakespeare Society in 1845, 
with a valuable preface by Collier. 'Henslowe,' says 
Collier, ' was an ignorant man, even for the time in which 
he lived, and for the station he occupied; he wrote a bad 
hand, adopted any orthography that suited his notion of 
the sound of words, especially of proper names (neces- 
sarily of most frequent occurrence), and he kept his book, 
as respects dates in particular, in the most disorderly, 
negligent, and confused manner. Sometimes, indeed, he 
observes a sort of system in his entries; but often when 



HOW PLAYS WERE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER's TIME. 33 

he wished to make a note, he seems to have opened his 
book at random and to have written what he wanted in 
any space he found vacant. He generally used his own 
pen, but, as we have stated, in some places the hand of a 
scribe or clerk is visible; and here and there the drama- 
tists and actors themselves wrote the item in which they 
were concerned, for the sake perhaps of saving the old 
manager trouble; thus in various parts of the manuscript, 
we meet with the handwriting, not merely the signatures, 
of Drayton, Chapman, Dekker, Chettle, Porter, Wilson, 
Hathaway, Day, S. Rowley, Haughton, Rankins, and 
Wadeson.' Where the names of nearly all the dramatic 
poets of the age are to be frequently found, we might 
certainly count on finding that of Shakespeare, but the 
shadow in which Shakespeare's early life was spent en- 
velops him here too and his name, as Collier says, is not 
met with in any part of the manuscript. The rapidity 
with which plays must have been written at that time is 
most remarkable and is testified beyond dispute by later 
portions of Henslowe's manuscript where, among other 
charges, he registers the sums paid, the dates of payment, 
and the authors who received the money. Nothing was 
more common than for dramatists to unite their abilities 
and resources, and when a piece on any account was to be 
brought out with peculiar despatch, three, four, five, and 
perhaps even six poets engaged themselves on different 
portions of it. Evidence of this dramatic combination 
will be found of such frequent occurrence that it is vain 
here to point out particular pages where it is to be met 
with." If the reader will bear in mind the facts shown 
relative to the ignorance of William Shaksper, he will 
have no trouble in understanding why Shaksper's name 
does not appear anywhere in Henslowe's Diary. If 



34 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Shaksper had been a composer of plays, Henslowe would 
certainly have employed him for that purpose. 

These collaborating playwrights were careless, easy- 
going fellows who sold the product of their brains for a 
mere pittance. Two or three or four, five, and some- 
times six would agree with the manager to write a play 
for his theatre; and when finished, it would be sold out- 
right to him for a paltry sum. The play, when sold, no 
longer belonged to the author or group of authors. It 
became the property of the manager, whose money had 
purchased it. To illustrate the fact of such proprietor- 
ship and to show the ownership of the proprietor of the 
theatre in thirty-two plays, one of which was very proba- 
bly "Love's Labor's Lost," I quote in full from page 276 
of the Diary. Henslowe, it will be remembered, was 
manager of the business, and as his spelling of the titles of 
the plays is abominably bad, I have given them correctly. 

"A note of all such books as belong to the stock, and 
such as I have bought since the 3d of March, 1598. 
Alexander and Lodovick King Arthur's Life and 

Alice Pierce Death 

Biron Madman's Morris 

Black Batman of the North Mother Redcap 

Parts 1 and 2 Phaeton 

Black Joan Phocus 

Brennoralt Pierce of Winchester 

Cobbler of Queen Hithe Pythagoras 

Every Man in his Humor Robin Hood, Parts 1 and 2 
Friar Pendleton Triangle of Cuckolds 

Goodwin, Parts 1 and 2 Vayvode 

Hardicanute Welshman's Prize 

Hercules, Parts 1 and 2 Woman Will Have her Will. 



HOW PLAYS WERE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER's TIME. 35 

If the diary of this ignoramus, Henslowe, had never 
been found, and nothing had ever been known of him 
except the date of his birth and death, and if the pub- 
lisher had printed these plays as the works of Philip 
Henslowe, they would have passed current as Henslowe's 
plays, for they belonged to him absolutely. 

Let us next see how plays were bought. An extract 
from the Diary, at page 106, will show how Henslowe 
became the owner of the play called " Mother Redcap" 
above named; and the quotation is given verbatim to 
make clear his illiteracy. 

"Layde out, the 22 of desembr 1597 for a boocke 
called Mother Redcape, to Antony Monday and Mr. 
Drayton Hi." 

Another extract, at page 222, will inform us as to the 
joint distillation of the learning and theatrical skill of five 
dramatists bought by him. 

"Lent unto Thomas Downton, the 29 of May 1602, to 
paye Thomas Dickers, Drayton, Mydellton, and Webster 
and Mondaye in fulle payment for the play called too 
harpes the some of three pounds." 

The Two Harpies or Harps therefore contained the 
embodied labor of five authors at twelve shillings each. 

Beside the purchase of plays outright, Henslowe bought 
in a very cheap way the services of some of these drama- 
tists as revisers or dressers of plays or as makers of addi- 
tions to them. If a play did not suit the audience or 
tickle the ears of the groundlings, it had to be added to, 
revised, dressed, or pruned; and for this purpose Thomas 
Dekker was principally employed, though at intervals 
the names of Benjamin Jonson, Henry Chettle, and others 
appear in the Diary. Thus on September 25, 1601, "Ben- 



36 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

gemen Johnson upon his writings of his adicions in Ger- 
onymus" got forty shillings, and on June 24, 1602, "for 
new Adicyons for Jeronymo" he received ten pounds. 
Henry Chettle "for mendinge of Robert Hoode for the 
Corte" got ten shillings. "For mendinge of the boocke 
called the prowde Woman," he got ten shillings on Jan- 
uary 21, 1601, and "for mendynge of the fyrst prte of 
Cardonlle Wollsey," he got twenty shillings. On page 
71 of the Diary is the following entry as to Dekker, who 
was afterward reviled by Jonson in his Poetaster as a 
dresser of plays: "Pel unto Thomas Dickens, the 20 of 
Desembr 1579 for adycyons to Fostus twentie shellinges 
and fyve shellenges for a prolog to Marlowes Tamberlen, 
so in all I saye payde twentye fyve shellinges." 

Buller asserts upon the authority of Warner that this 
entry is a forgery. But there could be no motive for such a 
forgery; and Warner's own comment shows that it is merely 
a crude opinion without any reason whatever to support it. 

Sidney Lee, an ardent believer in the ability of Shaksper 
to write the plays, confirms my statement of how plays 
were written in Shaksper's time. At page 45 of his life 
of the myriad-minded William, he says: 

"The professional playwrights sold their plays out- 
right to one or the other of the acting companies and 
they retained no legal interest in them after the manu- 
script passed into the hands of the theatrical manager. 
It was not unusual for the manager to invite extensive 
revision of a play at the hands of others than the author 
before it was produced on the stage, and again whenever 
it was revived." 

A remarkable entry also in confirmation of the system 
of collaboration is the entry on page 222, in which Hen- 



HOW PLAYS WERE WRITTEN IN SHAKSPER's TIME. 37 

slowe states that he paid to John Day on May 28, 1602, 
the sum of forty shillings in full payment for the Bristol 
Tragedy, "written by himself." Collier, the editor of 
the Diary, adds the following explanatory note: "The 
meaning of the words 'written by himself is most likely 
that Day was the author of it, without any coadjutors." 
As a matter of fact then, not to be gainsaid, it appears 
that during the period from 1590 to 1610, plays, for the 
most part, were written by collaboration, and the illus- 
trious men whose joint labors enriched the theatrical 
manager were poverty-stricken fellows who sold their 
poetry and wit for paltry sums. As Collier, in his intro- 
duction to the Diary, says, "Nothing was more common 
than for dramatists to unite their abilities and resources; 
and when a piece on any account was to be brought out 
with peculiar despatch, three, four, five, and perhaps even 
six poets engaged themselves upon different portions of it." 
Robert Burton, who probably knew some of these 
scholarly poets, describes them and their condition very 
accurately in his "Anatomy of Melancholy." "To say truth, 
'tis the common fortune of most scholars to be servile and 
poor, to complain pitifully, and lay open their wants to 
their respectless patrons; and which is too common in 
those dedicatory epistles, for hope of gain to lie, flatter, 
and with hyperbolical eulogiums and commendations, to 
magnify and extol an illiterate unworthy idiot whom they 
should rather, as Machiavel observes, vilify and rail at 
downright for his most notorious villainies and vices. 
They are like Indians— they have stores of gold, but know 
not the worth of it; for I am of Synesius' opinion that 
King Hiero got more by Simonides' acquaintance than 
Simonides did by his. They have their best education, 



38 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

good institution, sole qualification from us, and when they 
have done well, their honor and immortality from us. 
We are the living tombs, registers and as so many 
trumpeters of their fames. What was Achilles without 
Homer? Alexander without Arrian and Curtius? Who 
had known the Caesars, but for Suetonius and Dion? 

' Before great Agamemnon reigned 
Reign'd kings as great as he and brave 
Whose huge ambitions now contain' d 
In the small compass of a grave ; 
In endless night they sleep unwept, unknown, 
No bard they had to make all time their own.' 

" Poverty is the Muses' patrimony, and as that poetical 
divinity teacheth us, when Jupiter's daughters were each 
of them married, the Muses alone were left solitary, for- 
saken of all suitors, and I believe it was because they had 
no portion. Ever since, all their followers are poor, for- 
saken, and left unto themselves. Insomuch that as 
Petronius argues, you shall likely know them by their 
clothes. 'There came,' said he, 'by chance unto my 
company a fellow not very spruce to look on. I asked 
him what he was; he answered, a poet. I demanded 
again why he was so ragged? He told me that this kind 
of learning never made any man rich.'" 



CHAPTER IV. 

WILLIAM SHAKSPER HAS NO PLACE IN HENSLOWE's DIARY. 

"To my knowledge, 
I never in my life did look on him." 

—King Richard II, ii, 3. 

The fact that William Shaksper's name nowhere 
appears in any part of Henslowe's Diary, while having 
some weight as against his authorship of the plays, would 
not of itself have much significance were it not for the fact, 
not much known and heretofore not dwelt upon, that the 
company of which Henslowe was the manager and chief 
proprietor, owned and purchased some of the Shake- 
speare plays, and if Shaksper had written them or any part 
of them, or had disposed of his right and title to them as 
author, his name would certainly have appeared in the 
Diary. Titus Andronicus appeared as a new play and 
was acted at Henslowe's theatre for the first time on the 
twenty-third day of January, 1593. That it appeared as 
an entirely new play is conclusively proved by Henslowe's 
entry to that effect on the outer margin to designate it 
as such; and that it appeared on that day is clear from 
the following entry: 

"R'd at titus and Ondronicus the 23 of Jenewary 
1593 3 pounds 8 shillings." This entry meant that this 
sum represented the theatre receipts for the first pres- 
entation of the tragedy. 

In commenting on this entry, Collier, the editor em- 
ployed by the Shakespeare Society, says, in a note at 
page 33 of the Diary: 



40 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"Elsewhere sometimes spelt Tittus and Ondronicus' 
Malone had no doubt that this was the original Titus 
Andronicus before Shakespeare touched it (Shaksper by 
Bosw. 3, 300). It may be so or it may have been a dis- 
tinct play on the same subject. Whatever it was, it is a 
novel and material fact that it was a new play on the 
23 Jan. 1593. Henslowe placed ne in the outer margin 
to denote it." 

Here, then, is, as Collier says, a potent fact very clear 
and apparent that a play called Titus Andronicus was 
written prior to January 23, 1593, and put on the boards 
at that date, running through that season and the suc- 
ceeding year also as the Diary shows. Now, while it was 
all right for Malone to say that this was the original Titus 
Andronicus, because the presumption, unless contra- 
dicted and overcome, would warrant that assertion in the 
guise of an opinion and a very decided opinion, yet he 
had no warrant of fact or presumption to assert that 
William Shaksper had touched it. Where does it appear 
in all "the history of the times that the play of Titus 
Andronicus was ever amended, revised, or dressed by 
William Shaksper? It was a mere guess by Malone; and 
Collier, confounded by "the novel and material entry," 
hazards the guess that it might have been "a distinct 
play on the same subject." I put it to the unprejudiced 
reader that the natural hypothesis, founded on the unim- 
peachable statement in the Diary, is that the Titus 
Andronicus of the Diary was the Titus Andronicus of the 
plays, unless that hypothesis is destroyed by satisfactory 
evidence to the contrary. 

On page 34 of the Diary it is shown that the tragedy 
of King Lear was acted on the sixth day of April, 1593. 



SHAKSPER HAS NO PLACE IN HENSLOWE's DIARY. 41 

The entry is as follows: "R'd at King Leare the 6 of 
Aprell 1593 XXXVIII s." The name of William Snaksper 
is not mentioned at all in connection with this play, and 
we are treated, in a foot note, to the following positive 
opinion of the editor that "this King Lear was certainly 
a much older play than Shakespeare's King Lear, and at 
this date our great dramatist was not one of the Queen's 
men." The dictum of Collier is utterly worthless, because 
it is not substantiated by any fact in support of it. The 
Diary does not mention Shaksper either as author, 
mender or reviser. The play could not have been a popu- 
lar one, since it does not appear to have been repeated, 
and it would not be popular now if put upon the stage. 

Henry the Fifth was acted for the first time on May 
14, 1592, as is clearly shown on page 26 of the Diary. 
"Malone," says the editor in a note, " takes no notice of 
this play, which at least was the same in subject as Shake- 
speare's work. Possibly he read it 'Harey the VI,' but it 
is clearly 'Harey the 5th.' This is the piece to which 
Nash alluded in his 'Pierce Penniless' published in 1592; 
and the famous victories of Henry 5 was entered at Sta- 
tioner's Hall to be printed in 1594. Malone was not 
aware that any such historical drama was mentioned by 
Henslowe." It was a very popular piece, for it was acted 
nine times in the winter of 1595 and in 1596, and brought 
good receipts to the company. The inventory of the goods 
of My Lord Admiral's men, set out at page 271 of the 
Diary, recites that in the year 1598 the doublet and velvet 
gown of Harry the fifth were "gone and lost," while at 
page 276 it is shown that the company, on the 13th of 
March, 1598, was supplied with a velvet gown for Harry 
and a satin doublet laid with golden lace, indicating that 



42 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

the play had kept its hold upon the theatre-goers from 
year to year. 

In all these entries there is no mention of Shaksper 
as the author or part author of the play or of any right, 
title, or interest of his therein. 

The play of Henry the Sixth was acted for the first 
time in the theatre on the third day of March, 1591, as 
the Diary shows. The comments of Collier below this 
entry, at page 22, are significant: 

"This play, whether by Shakespeare or not, was 
extremely popular. It produced Henslowe £1 lis Od 
for his share on its fourteenth representation. On 
its performance in 1591, we here see that it brought him 
£3 16s 5d. Malone was of the opinion that it was the first 
part of Henry the Sixth, included among Shakespeare's 
works; and it is certain that this entry of 3 of March, 
1591, relates to its original production, as Henslowe has 
put his mark 'ne' in the margin." 

Popular as Henry the Sixth was, there is no recogni- 
tion in the Diary of Shaksper's connection with its author- 
ship; and no entry appears anywhere therein indicating 
that he was paid or to be paid any sum of money for the 
sale of the play to the company. 

The Taming of a Shrew was acted on the 11th of June, 
1594, as shown by the following entry: 

"11 of June 1594 R'd at the tamynge of a Shrewe 
IX s." 

Collier appends to this entry the following note: "No 
doubt the old Taming of a Shrew, printed in 1594, and 
recently reprinted by the Shakespeare Society under the 
care of Mr. Amyot from the sole existing copy in the 
library of the Duke of Devonshire." 



SHAKSPER HAS NO PLACE IN HENSLOWE's DIARY. 43 

But who wrote The Taming of a Shrew printed in 
1594, and who wrote the Titus Andronicus, Henry the 
Fifth, Henry the Sixth, or King Lear referred to in the 
Diary? Neither Collier nor any of the Shaksper com- 
mentators make any claim to their authorship in behalf 
of William Shaksper. Since these plays have the same 
names as those included in the Folio of 1623, the pre- 
sumption is that they are the same plays until the con- 
trary is shown. Of course, it may be shown either that 
those in the Folio are entirely different, except in name, 
or that these plays were revised, improved, and dressed 
by some one whom they called Shakespeare. 

I think that the Henslowe Diary shows also on pages 
91, 210, 240, 241, and 276 that the comedy of Love's 
Labor's Lost was acted at Henslowe's theatre, most proba- 
bly the Rose Theatre, by the Lord Admiral and Lord 
Pembroke's men, on the second day of November, 1597. 
The name of the play is spelled in various ways in the 
Diary, as Burone, Beroune, Burbon, and Borbonne. 

The entry on page 240 is as follows: "Lent unto John 
Ducke the 25 of Septembr 1602 to buy a blacke sewt of 
satten for the play of Burone the some of VII." As to 
this entry, the editor makes the following note: "In the 
History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage iii, 95, 
it is suggested that this entry and others may refer to 
Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy and Tragedy printed in 
1608, but this is questionable on a comparison of dates. 
See Collier's Shakespeare 1, p. 209, where it is shown that 
Chapman's two plays have not reached us as they were 
originally written, in consequence of the remonstrance of 
the French Ambassador against certain incidents in 
them." 



44 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The next entry in the Diary, at page 241, helps to iden- 
tify the play. "Layd owt at the apoyntmente of the 
companye, to macke a scafowld and bare for the play of 
Berowne and Carpenters' wages 14 s." 

This indicates that there was a play or performance 
within the play which Henslowe calls Berowne, as there 
actually is in Love's Labor's Lost, namely, in the presen- 
tation of the side show by Armado, Costard, Nathaniel, 
and the rest of the Nine Worthies. A scaffold and bar 
are meant by the terms " scafowld and bare," and by the 
word " Berowne" Henslowe, this rich murderer of the 
King's English, probably meant to name the chief char- 
acter "Biron," in Love's Labor's Lost. This opinion of 
mine seems to be confirmed by the second note which 
the learned Verplanck, who edited an excellent edition 
of the plays, appends to the first scene of act one. 
"Biron," he says, "is in all the old editions printed 
'Berowne/ which Rowe altered to 'Biron,' as the tradi- 
tionary pronunciation of that noble name had in his time 
still remained as in Shakespeare's. The verse shows that 
it is not a misprint, but the pronunciation of the poet 
himself and his times. It is to be pronounced with the 
accent on the last syllable." Upon examination of the 
old editions it will be found that Verplanck was right. 
"Biron" in all of them is printed "Berowne," which 
Rowe took it upon himself in after years to change to 
Biron. Henslowe, therefore, did not get very far out of 
the way in his spelling of the word. 

If I am right in my opinion as to the identification of 
the play by the term used by Henslowe, the play was 
acted in 1597, and it is certainly known that it was pub- 
lished in 1598. That Henslowe's company owned this 



SHAKSPER HAS NO PLACE IN HENSLOWE's DIARY. 45 

play as late as March 3, 1598, is shown on page 276 of 
the Diary. 

Richard the Third was probably brought out on Decem- 
ber 31, 1593, although Henslowe spells it "Richard the 
Confesser" and on the next day he calls it " Bucking- 
ham." In the mention of Berowne or of this play in the 
Diary there is no reference whatever to William Shaksper. 
If Shaksper had been a writer of plays, and if he had 
written any of the plays above named, his talents and 
ability would have been appreciated by Henslowe, and 
he would undoubtedly have been employed by him to 
write and revise plays, so that his name would have 
appeared in the Diary. That Henslowe was quick to 
recognize talent is evident from the fact that Drayton, 
Wilson, Monday, and Hathaway received from him a 
monetary gift after the first presentation of Sir John 
Oldcastle, in addition to their pay; and John Day and 
Thomas Dekker received similar presents; while suppers 
were given by him to them from time to time. But 
William Shaksper was wholly ignored by Henslowe. 
Collier, on page 14 of the introduction to the Diary, utters 
the following lamentation: "Recollecting that the names 
of nearly all the other play-poets of the time occur, we 
can not but wonder that that of Shaksper is not met with 
in any part of the manuscript. The notices of Ben Jon- 
son, Dekker, Chettle, Marston, Wilson, Drayton, Monday, 
Heywood, Middleton, Porter, Hathaway, Rankins, Web- 
ster, Day, Rowley, Haughton, &c, are frequent, because 
they were all writers for Henslowe's theatre; but we 
must wait at all events for the discovery of some other 
similar record, before we can produce corresponding 
memoranda regarding Shaksper and his productions." 



46 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

It is quite clear to any unprejudiced seeker after the 
truth that Henslowe could not have obtained from the 
author or authors of Hamlet, King Lear, Titus Androni- 
cus, or the Taming of the Shrew, the title to and owner- 
ship of such plays or of any of them without paying for 
them, and more especially he could not without a good 
consideration have got them from Shaksper, whose busi- 
ness transactions all show that in money matters he was 
a tight-fisted fellow. Yet during the interval of time 
during which the Shakespeare plays appeared, namely, 
from 1590 to 1609, William Shaksper had no place in the 
Diary of Philip Henslowe — a book which contains minute 
and valuable information respecting the history and con- 
dition of the early drama and stage between the years 
above named, during the whole of which period Collier, 
without the slightest foundation of fact for his state- 
ment, guesses that "Shaksper was exercising his un- 
equalled powers for the public instruction and amusement." 

While Collier was compelled to admit that there is no 
mention whatever of William Shaksper in the Diary, yet 
he felt it to be his duty to get his idol's name into the 
copy published by the Shakespeare Society. He accom- 
plished this by means of notes in which he contrived to 
insert a reference to Shakespeare. 

The insertion of these notes editorially enabled him to 
incorporate the name of William Shakespeare in the index 
to the Diary; so that while William Shaksper has no place 
in Henslowe's Diary, he has been well provided for by 
Collier in his index to the printed copy of the manuscript. 

Not only is it true that William Shaksper has no place 
in Henslowe's Diary, but it is also a fact well worthy of 
consideration that he has no place in Edward Alleyn's 



SHAKSPER HAS NO PLACE IN HENSLOWE's DIARY. 47 

memoirs or accounts. The reader will remember that 
Alleyn was not only an actor but a theatrical proprietor, 
and that he was the founder of Dulwich College. His 
papers and memoirs, which were published in 1841 and 
1843, contain the names of all the notable actors and 
play-poets of Shaksper's time, as well as of every person 
who helped directly or indirectly or who paid out money 
or received money in connection with the production of 
the many plays at the Blackfriars Theatre, the Fortune, 
and other theatres. His accounts were very minutely 
stated, and a careful perusal of the two volumes shows 
that there is not one mention of such a poet as William 
Shaksper in his list of actors, poets, and theatrical com- 
rades. 



CHAPTER V. 

SHAKSPER COMMENDED NO CONTEMPORARY. 

"Our praises are our wages." 

—The Winter's Tale, i, 2. 

It was the universal custom in England during the 
period when Shaksper lived for poets and prose writers 
to praise the writings of contemporary authors, either in 
verse or prose. If the reader will turn to the works of 
Thomas Heywood, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Thomas 
Middleton, Michael Drayton, John Marston, Thomas 
Dekker, or any of the distinguished writers of that era, 
he will discover that such commendatory verses invari- 
ably accompany the preface or dedication when the book 
issued from the press. 

I will give a brief illustration from the works of Hey- 
wood. His works are prefaced by the commendation of 
three contemporaries. One of them begins thus: 

" To his worthy friend, the author Thomas Heywood. 

Heywood, when men weigh truly what thou art, 
How the whole frame of learning claims a part 
In thy deep apprehension; and then see, 
To knowledge added so much industry; 
Who will deny thee the best palm and bays? 
And that to name thee to himself is praise." 

In further illustration of this custom, the poet Drayton 
wrote commendatory verses for Chapman's "Hesiod," 
Tuke's " Discourse against the painting and tincturing of 



SHAKSPER COMMENDED NO CONTEMPORARY. 49 

Women," Monday's "Primaleon of Greece," and his own 
compositions were in a like manner commended by Browne, 
Sir William Alexander, Drummond, and other contem- 
poraries and friends. Beaumont and Fletcher received 
for their plays poetical commendation and gave such 
commendation in courteous exchange to their associates 
in the art of poesy. Marston and Dekker did the same, 
and Ben Jonson, who was regarded as morose, surly, and 
envious, took delight in praising the works of others and 
in being praised for his own. The celebrated poem 
ascribed to Charles Best was commended in verse by 
Ben Jonson, George Chapman, William Browne, Robert 
Daborne, and George Wither. I need not multiply illus- 
trations. It was the common custom of the poets of 
that era. 

Let us consider for a moment how the learned com- 
mentators picture Shaksper. He is called by them "Our 
pleasant Willy," and "the gentle Shepherd," and they 
describe him as the intimate friend and companion of 
Ben Jonson in his revelries and of Burbage in his amours. 
They picture him as a man of amiable and generous dis- 
position and one who would naturally interest himself in 
the advancement of his friends, and especially of the young 
men who were aspiring to be poets or dramatists. Collier 
says that "he must have been of a lively and compan- 
ionable disposition; that we can readily believe that when 
any of his old associates of the stage, whether authors or 
actors, came to Stratford, they found a hearty welcome 
and free entertainment at his house." If Shaksper was 
such a companionable and amiable fellow, and if he was 
the writer of plays and poems, he would naturally have 
followed the universal custom of obliging and gratifying 



50 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

his writer friends with commendatory verses to accom- 
pany their works. But we look in vain for even one 
such act of courtesy and commendation. The great 
writers and poets of that era wrote and published books, 
and their plays were printed from time to time while 
Shaksper lived, but Shaksper's name is not found among 
the commenders. Whether a poet in those days was an 
ill-natured churl or a gentleman, he could not very well 
refuse the request, if asked by a brother poet, for a short 
commendatory stanza or two to give standing to the issue 
of his brain. And if Shaksper had been a poet at all, if 
he had been on such familiar terms with Beaumont, 
Fletcher, Jonson, Chapman, Dekker, and the other poetical 
frequenters of the Mermaid tavern as his admirers assert 
that he was, these poets or some of them would naturally 
have solicited a few lines from Shaksper if he was the 
honey-tongued, heaven-inspired king of poets. The plea 
of Shaksper's indifference is the only refuge and defense 
of the Shaksperites against these assaults. He was 
indifferent, they assert, to praise or dispraise. That is 
the very ground of the charge the seekers after the truth 
make against him. He was unquestionably indifferent, 
and naturally so, for the reason that he was not a poet 
and he was too ignorant to compose a decent and readable 
commendation, either in verse or prose. He may have 
had, and probably did have, all the business capacity of 
Philip Henslowe, who associated with and gave suppers 
to the poets who sold the coinage of their brains to him, 
but no poet would have ever asked Henslowe for com- 
mendatory verses; and if Shaksper's indifference was 
founded upon ignorance, he could not give and certainly 
would not receive commendatory verses. 



SHAKSPER COMMENDED NO CONTEMPORARY. 51 

There is one thing which the Shaksper worshipers do 
not consider and are unable to answer, and that is the 
potent argument against their indifference theory which 
the real writer or writers of the plays advances against 
them. The real Shakespeare says : 

" Canst thou the conscience lack, 
To think I shall lack friends?" 

— Timon of Athens, ii, 2. 

"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel." 

—Hamlet, i, 3. 

"Is all forgot? 
All school-days' friendship, childhood, innocence?" 

—Midsummer Night's Dream, iii, 2. 

"What friendship may I do thee?" 

—Timon of Athens, iv, 3. 

"A friend should bear his friend's infirmities." 

—Julius Caesar, iv, 3. 

" I have heard you say 
That we shall see and know our friends in heaven." 

— King John, iii, 4. 

And many other instances might be cited from the 
plays of the value given to friendship and courtesy by the 
writer or writers of the plays. 

Whether the custom of the poets of that era as to 
commendation was followed for the purpose of helping 
the sale of the book or as a mere matter of courtesy and 
gratulation, it was the prevailing custom among the poets 
and writers of the time; and if William Shaksper was a 
poet and dramatist, and if he was imbued with the spirit 



52 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

of courtesy and gentleness which the Shaksper idolaters 
audaciously and without warrant lavish upon him, he 
would certainly have honored his contemporaries with a 
stanza or two at least of heaven-bred poesy or a few lines 
of complimentary prose in praise of their occasional 
efforts to please the public. His admirers claim that he 
was cheek by jowl with Ben Jonson, Drayton, Beau- 
mont and Fletcher, and all the great writers of that epoch, 
and yet no man has ever produced one line or one word 
even from William Shaksper in praise or commendation 
of the works of any man who was a contemporary. Dur- 
ing Shaksper's life, prose and poetical commendations 
circulated freely among the real poets and dramatists, 
but William Shaksper praised no one, criticised no one, 
extended courtesy to no one, and the readers of the works 
of the great men of that day will look in vain for any 
written or printed word to show that Shaksper ever 
wrote a sentence either in commendation or disparage- 
ment of anybody. One can understand that if a learned 
man is saturnine, selfish, and sullen, although he can not 
escape from them, he may nevertheless despise the cour- 
tesies and conventionalities of society or of those in his 
own profession or occupation; but if he is truthfully 
credited with gentleness, affability, and the power to 
appreciate the efforts of his associates, he certainly would 
have been, in such a case, the very last man to abstain 
from commending their literary efforts. 

If one man wrote the Shakespeare plays and poems, 
that man, whoever he was, must have had literary asso- 
ciates and friends; he must have been more or less 
acquainted with the noble and learned men and women 
of that period; he must have been at least in touch with 



SHAKSPER COMMENDED NO CONTEMPORARY. 53 

such of his accomplished fellow men as were engaged in 
the same pursuits in life, or with those whom he looked 
up to as the encouragers and patrons of his literary efforts. 
Such a brilliant and learned writer could not shut him- 
self up from society and avoid all communion with his 
fellow men. 

Hence it is a circumstance measurably tending to 
weaken the Shaksper claim to authorship that nowhere 
in all the history or the literature of the time in which 
he lived can be found any commendatory epistle either 
in prose or verse addressed by him to any poet or prose 
writer of the period. If such a written or printed com- 
mendation could be found, and if Shaksper had been a 
man of letters competent to write a play, the fact of such 
a commendatory letter written by him would be an irre- 
sistible argument in his favor. On the other hand, the 
fact that no such commendatory letter exists in manu- 
script or book form is a very strong argument against 
the ability of Shaksper to write a play at all. 

It is, of course, clear to the student of English litera- 
ture, and especially to those who have waded through 
the guesses and hypotheses of Shaksper's idolaters that 
during his lifetime no writer addressed any commenda- 
tory verses or prose writings to accompany any book or 
publication authorized by him. If any comedy, tragedy, 
history, or book on any special or miscellaneous subject 
can be found issued in Shaksper's lifetime by his author- 
ization, with any words therein of commendation of 
Shaksper from any poet or prose writer of the time, it 
would be hailed with delight by the reading public as 
confirmatory of the disputed Shaksper claim, and it would 
be the very best evidence of Shaksper's ability to write 



54 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

a play or poem. That none such can be found after the 
exhaustive search of several centuries is a presumption 
at least against that ability. 

In this connection what Emerson said about the failure 
of the great men of that era to find out such a person as 
Shaksper is worthy of consideration. 

"If it need wit to know wit, according to the proverb, 
Shakespeare's time should be capable of recognizing it. 
Sir Henry Wotton was born four years after Shakespeare, 
and died twenty-three years after him, and I find among 
his correspondents and acquaintances the following per- 
sons: Theodore Beza, Isaac Casaubon, Sir Philip Sidney, 
the Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, John 
Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr. Donne, Abra- 
ham Cowley, Bellarmine, Charles Cotton, John Pym, John 
Hales, Kepler, Vieta, Albericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, 
Arminius — with all of whom exists some token of his 
having communicated, without enumerating many others 
whom doubtless he (Wotton) saw — Shakespeare, Spenser, 
Jonson, Beaumont, Massinger, two Herberts, Marlowe, 
Chapman, and the rest. Since the constellation of great 
men who appeared in Greece in the time of Pericles, there 
was never any such society; yet their genius failed them 
to find out the best head in the universe. Our poet's 
mask was impenetrable." 






CHAPTER VI. 

SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY. 

" Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me 
From my own library with volumes that 
I prize above my dukedom.^ 

—The Tempest, i, 2. 

A literary man, and especially one who is credited by 
the admiring public with the authorship of the histories, 
comedies, and tragedies which the literary world so much 
esteems, could not transact business, either literary or 
otherwise, without writing letters to his friends, gentle or 
simple, admirers, kinsmen, tradesmen, patrons, fellows 
of his craft or publishers. In Shaksper's time, Ben Jon- 
son, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Michael Dray- 
ton, John Webster, John Marston, Francis Beaumont, 
John Fletcher, and others wrote to one another and to 
friends, acquaintances, and patrons, and their epistles 
and writings have been found; even Dekker's letters 
from the debtors' prison have been preserved. But in 
the case of Shaksper, the most persistent and careful 
search for any writing, epistolary or otherwise, from his 
pen or pencil, has been unavailing. Letters have been 
manufactured in order to minister to the cravings of 
hungry admirers and devotees, but a genuine letter from 
William Shaksper has never been discovered; and as will 
be shown hereafter, none can be' discovered, for the evi- 
dence based on his signatures shows that he could not 
write a letter. 



56 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Diligent search has evolved one letter, and only one, to 
him, an exact copy of which is as follows: 

"Loveinge contreyman, I am bolde of yow, as of a 
ffrende, craveinge yowr helpe with xxx.ll. vppon Mr. 
Bushells and my securytee, or Mr. Myttons with me. 
Mr. Rosswell is nott come to London as yeate, and I 
have especiall cawse. Yow shall ffrende me muche in 
helping me out of all the debettes I owe in London, I 
thancke God, and muche wuiet my Mynde, which wolde 
nott be indebted. I am nowe towardes the Cowrte, in 
hope of answer for the dispatche of my buysenes. Yow 
shall nether loase creddytt nor monney by me, the Lorde 
wyllinge; and now butt perswacle yowrselfe soe, as I 
hope, and yow shall nott need to feare, butt, with all 
heartie thanckfulleness, I wyll holcle my tyme, and con- 
tent yowr ffrende, and yf we bargaine farther, yow shall 
be the pai-master yowrselfe. My tyme biddes me hastene 
to an ende, and soe I committ this (to) yowr care and 
hope of yowr helpe. I fear I shall nott be backe thys 
night ffrom the Cowrte. Haste. The Lorde be with 
yow and with vs all, Amen! ffrom the Bell in Carter 
Lane, the 25 October, 1598. 

Yowrs in all kyndenes, 

Rye. Quyney. 
To my loveinge good ffrend and contreymann Mr. Wm. 
Shackespere deliver thees." 

This letter tends to show that Shaksper, like the igno- 
rant Henslowe, was a money-lender, and it throws no 
light whatever upon his literary ability. No man can be 
a great writer without having friends to correspond with. 
He can not escape from letter-writing. Some of his 
correspondence, however trivial, will be found in some 



SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY. 57 

one's possession. Not a scrap, not a word from Shaksper 
has ever been found. 

Pope gives in the following lines expression to the 
universal idea as to the usefulness and pleasure imparted 
by letters : 

"They live, they speak, they breathe what love inspires; 
Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires; 
The virgin's wish without her fears impart, 
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart, 
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul, 
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole." 

But why go to Pope, when the real Shakespeare says : 

" Let me hear from thee by letters 
Of thy success in love, and what news else 
Betideth here in absence of thy friend." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, l. 

" For often have you writ to her, and she, in modesty, 
Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply." 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii, 1. 

"We shall have a rare letter from him." 

—Twelfth Night, iii, 2. 

"Here is a letter will say somewhat." 

—Merry Wives of Windsor, iv, 5. 

The plays are full of incidents connected with letters 
and with reference to correspondence by letters. The 
literary public have craved and sought everywhere for a 
corroboratory line by way of letter or merest fragment 
of note from the real Shakespeare. Ireland invented 
some to please the popular taste, and the people generally 
and even the critics were gulled by his forgeries for a little 
while. If there could only be found, for example, a letter 
from the divine William to his beloved wife explaining 



58 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

satisfactorily why he bequeathed to her his second-best 
bed, what a treasure it would be to the literary world! 
The letter might for instance say, to borrow Collier's 
language, that this "second-best bed" was that in which 
the husband and wife had slept when he was in Strat- 
ford earlier in life and every night since his retirement 
from the metropolis ; and that as the best bed was reserved 
for visitors he thought that she would be better pleased 
with the old bed; or he might have said, as one devotee 
explains it, that he gave and bequeathed it to her because 
it was the bed which they bought and used when they 
were married; and that when left a widow she could 
preserve it as a memorial. 

Skottowe, in his Life of Shakespeare, Note P, aptly 
says as to this magnificent bequest, " When Shaksper 
made his will, his wife was at first forgotten altogether, 
and only became entitled to her legacy under the benefit 
of an interlineation. To those in search of subjects for 
controversy the temptation was irresistible. Malone 
acknowledges the bard's contempt for his wife, and think- 
ing it derogatory to his penetration not to be able to 
account for it, makes him jealous of her. Steevens, rightly 
enough, defends the lady, but, forgetting for once the 
knowledge of his life, appears quite unconscious that 
husbands as well as wives are occasionally false. The 
conversion of the bequest of an inferior piece of furniture 
into a mark of peculiar tenderness— 

' The very bed that on his bridal night 
Received him to the arms of Belvidera' 

is not much in the usual style of this very knowing com- 
mentator." He takes it for granted, without any proof, 



SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY. 59 

that this famous second-best bed was in reality the nup- 
tial couch. 

Old John Hayward, a contemporary of Shaksper, and 
the same John whose body Queen Elizabeth felt inclined 
to rack, furnishes a better and more practical key to the 
discovery of the true intent and meaning of Shaksper's 
will in this respect than either Collier or Steevens, for in 
his will, dated March 30, 1626, he uses this language, "I 
give to my wife the bed wherein she lieth with all things 
pertaining thereto, and two other of the meanest beds 
held for servants," and then he adds, "in regard of her 
unquiet life and small respect towards me, a great deal 
too much." 

Or if there could only be found a letter from Shaksper 
to his dearly beloved daughter Judith after her marriage, 
regretting her inability to write and explaining to her 
how he sought to send her to school when she was at the 
proper age, but that she was then very willful and way- 
ward, refusing either to stay at school or to study, and 
that therefore neither she nor her husband Thomas Quiney 
could blame him for her inability to write her own name. 

Or if there could be found a letter from his wife to him 
explaining, for the world's benefit, why the marriage 
license was taken out in the name of Anne Whatley of 
Temple Grafton and the marriage bond in the name of 
Anne Hathaway of Stratford-on-Avon. 

Or if there could only be found a letter from him to 
any one of his dear friends, describing his library and 
specifying the books which he most delighted in reading 
and studying. 

As to being the possessor of a library, the facts tend 
to negative the ownership in him of any books or manu- 



60 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

scripts whatever. And what are the facts? The reader 
must go to his will for them. The will was prepared in 
January, 1616, and written by Francis Collins, a solicitor 
of Warwick, but it was not signed by Shaksper until 
March 25, 1616. He gave among other things to Judith 
Quiney, his younger daughter, his broad silver gilt bowl, 
and to his wife his second-best bed with the furniture, 
but he makes no mention whatever of books or manu- 
scripts, and no directions whatever are given as to the 
publication of any writings. 

From the absence of all reference to books in Shaks- 
per's will, it may safely be inferred that he was not the 
owner of any. This presumption is aided also by the 
further fact that the Halls, who were his residuary lega- 
tees, made no reference on the sale of Hall's books to any 
books of Shaksper; and Halliwell-Phillips, who was a 
believer in Shaksper's authorship of the plays, says about 
the library "that Shaksper ever owned one at any time 
of his life is exceedingly improbable." 

Naturally a man takes a pride and very special interest 
in his own literary offspring; and particularly so if he is 
rich enough to provide in his last will for its proper pres- 
ervation. But Shaksper, although rich enough, took no 
interest in any literary production attributed to him, and 
made no provision either by will or otherwise for the care 
of any manuscript and the circulation thereof by publi- 
cation. Indeed Shaksper never claimed, directly or indi- 
rectly, that he ever wrote a single play. 

Here again it seems proper to produce evidence in 
support of my theory, from irrefragable sources. The 
author of The Tempest, in addition to the words which 
I have placed at the beginning of this chapter, said also, 



SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY. 61 

" My library 
Was dukedom large enough." 

—The Tempest, i, 2. 

" Ah boy ! Cornelia never with more care 
Read to her sons, than she hath read to thee 
Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator. 
Some book there is that she desires to see; 
Which is it, girl, of these? Open them, boy — 
But thou art deeper read, and better skill' d, 
Come and take choice of all my library." 

— Titus Andronicus, iv, 1. 

" We turned o'er many books together." 

— Letter in Merchant of Venice, iv, 1. 

"Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred 
in a book." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, 4, 1. 

Old Chaucer knew what a scholar craved when he 
wrote : 

" For he would rather have at his bed head 
A twenty books, clothed in black or red 
Of Aristotle or his philosophy 
Than robes rich, rebeck or saltery." 

Taking, now, the sad admission of Halliwell-Phillips 
that it is probable that Shaksper never owned a library 
at any time in his life, and couple that admission with 
the fact that he is admitted to have been a rich man, 
and it follows that there is a very strong presumption 
from these facts that, however shrewd in business affairs 
he may have been, he was an illiterate fellow. Who 
can believe that an ignoramus could be divinely inspired? 



62 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Appleton Morgan takes very positive ground against 
Shaksper's literary knowledge on the basis of his lack of 
books. On page 266 of his "Shakespearean Myth" he 
says: 

"But even if Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, 
and Julius Caesar could have been produced by machin- 
ery, and engrossed currente calamo (so that the author's 
first draft should be the acting copy for the players), 
they could hardly have been composed, nowadays, with- 
out a library. And even had William Shaksper possessed 
an encyclopedia (such as were first invented two hundred 
years or so after his funeral), he would not have found it 
inclusive of all the references he needed for these five 
plays alone. They can not be studied as they were capable 
of being studied by Coleridge and Gervinus — without a 
library. And yet are we to be asked to believe that they 
were composed without one, in the days when such a 
thing as a dictionary even was unknown? Who ever 
heard of William Shaksper in his library pulling down 
volumes, dipping into folios, peering into manuscripts, 
his brain in throe and his pen in labor, weaving the warp 
and woof of his poetry and his philosophy, at the expense 
of Greece and Rome and Egypt; pillaging alike from 
tomes of Norsemen lore and Southern romance — for the 
pastime of the rabble that sang bawdy songs and swal- 
lowed beer amid the straw of his pit, and burned juniper 
and tossed his journey-actors in blankets? 

"It is always interesting to read of the habitudes of 
authors — of paper-saving Pope scribbling his Iliad on the 
backs of old correspondence, of Spenser by his fireside in 
his library at Kilcolman Castle, of Scott among his dogs, 
of Gibbon biting at the peaches that hung on the trees 



SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY. 63 

in his garden at Lausanne, of Schiller declaiming by 
mountain brooksides and in forest paths, of Goldsmith 
in his garrets and his jails. Even of Chaucer, dead and 
buried before Shaksper saw the light, we read of his 
studies at Cambridge, his call to the bar and his chambers 
in the Middle Temple. But of William Shaksper — after 
ransacking tradition, gossip, and the record, save and 
except the statement of Ben Jonson how he had heard 
the actor's anecdote about his never blotting his lines, — 
not a word, not a breath can be found to connect him 
with or surprise him in any agency or employment as to 
the composition of the plays we insist upon calling his — 
much less to the possession of a single book. Had we 
found this massive draught upon antiquity in the remains 
of an immortal Milton or a mortal Tupper, or in all the 
range of letters between, we should not have failed to 
presume a library. Why should we believe that William 
Shaksper needed none? — that as his pen ran, he never 
paused to lift a volume from the shelf to refresh or verify 
his marvelously retentive recollection? There was no 
Astor or Mercantile Library around the corner from the 
Globe or the Blackfriars in those days. And as for his 
possessions, he leaves in his will no hint of book or library, 
much less of the literature the booksellers had taken the 
liberty of christening with his name! Where is the 
scholar who glories not in his scholarship? By universal 
testimony, the highest pleasure which an author draws 
from his own completed work, the pride of the poet in his 
own poems is their chiefest payment. The simple fact 
which stands out so prominently in the life of this man 
that nobody can gainsay it — that William Shaksper took 
neither pride nor pleasure in any of the works which 



64 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

passed current with the rest of the world as his, might 
well make the most casual student of these days suspi- 
cious of a claim that, among his other accomplishments, 
William Shaksper was an author at all." 

While Morgan's reasoning is correct, I am content to 
claim only that the facts shown as to Shaksper's lack of 
a library form a strong presumptive link in the chain of 
presumptions against his ability to compose a poem or a 
play. 

A man without a library, who is learned, studious, 
and persistent, may borrow from his friends and patrons, 
and he may cull from all the literary products of his time 
or former times, but such a course of persevering study 
could not escape the observation and mention of the 
man's contemporaries and, as in the case of Drayton and 
Dekker, the fact would be often and publicly noted and 
commented upon. 

The case against Shaksper does not rest upon one pre- 
sumption. It is a case of admitted fact supported by 
many strong presumptions. 

Donnelly makes a very strong argument against Shaks- 
per, based on this presumption. He asks the question, 
"Where are his books?" and then he says at page 76 
of his Cryptogram "The author of the plays was a man 
of large learning; he had read and studied Homer, Plato, 
Heliodorus, Sophocles, Euripides, Dares Phrygius, Horace, 
Virgil, Lucretius, Statius, Catullus, Seneca, Ovid, Plautus, 
Plutarch, Boccaccio, Berni, and an innumerable array of 
French novelists and Spanish and Danish writers. The 
books which have left their traces in the plays would of 
themselves have constituted a large library. What became 
of them? Did William Shaksper of Stratford possess 



SHAKSPER LEFT NO LETTERS AND HAD NO LIBRARY. 65 

such a library? If he did, there is not the slightest refer- 
ence to it in his will." 

If Shaksper had left any books, the Halls, as his resid- 
uary legatees, would have received and owned them. 
But none were ever received, owned, claimed, or sold by 
them. 

One sarcastic commentator and Baconian advocate, 
alluding to Shaksper's lack of a library, said that "the 
books which have left their traces in the plays would of 
themselves have constituted a large library. What be- 
came of them? There were no public libraries in that 
day to which the student could resort. The man who 
wrote the plays must have loved his library ; he would 
have remembered it in his last hours. He could not have 
forgotten Montaigne, Holinshed, Plutarch, Ovid, Plato, 
Horace, the French and Italian romances, to remember 
his 'brod silver and gilt bole,' his 'sword', his 'wearing 
apparel' and 'his second-best bed with the furniture.' 
There is no evidence that Shaksper possessed a single 
book." 



CHAPTER VII. 

SHAKSPER GAVE HIS CHILDREN NO EDUCATION. 

" Ignorance is the curse of God, 
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." 

—Second Part of Henry VI, iv, 7. 

If the writer of the seventh scene of the fourth act of 
second Henry the Sixth believed that ignorance was the 
curse of God, and if he had children, he certainly would 
either by himself or with the aid of a teacher have taught 
them to read and write. If William Shaksper was that 
writer, then he permitted his own children to be afflicted 
with that curse of God, for his two daughters were igno- 
rant and uneducated. One fact is worth a thousand guesses, 
and it is an undeniable fact that Shaksper's children were 
grossly ignorant. Judith Shaksper, his daughter, could 
not even write her name. The proof as to her ignorance 
is clear and convincing and the most prejudiced Shaksper 
admirer can not truthfully deny this statement. Halli- 
well-Phillips says: "When Judith Shakespeare was 
invited in December, 1611, to be a subscribing witness 
to two instruments respecting a house at the southeast 
corner of Wood Street, then being sold by Mrs. Quiney 
to one William Mountford for the large sum of 131 pounds, 
in both instances her attestations were executed with 
marks." Susanna, the elder sister, who married John 
Hall, was also uneducated and her own conduct with 
relation to her deceased husband's effects goes to show 
that she was an ignorant woman. Phillips says of her, 



SHAKSPER GAVE HIS CHILDREN NO EDUCATION. 67 

" During the civil wars, about the year 1642, a surgeon 
named James Cooke, attending in his professional capa- 
city on a detachment stationed at Stratford-bridge, was 
invited to New Place to examine the books which the 
doctor had left behind him. 'After a view of them,' as 
he observes, 'Mrs. Hall told me she had some books left 
by one that professed physic with her husband for some 
money; I told her if I liked them, I would give her the 
money again; she brought them forth, amongst which 
there was this, with another of the authors, both intended 
for the press; I, being acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, 
told her that one or two of them were her husband's, 
and showed them to her; she denied; I affirmed, till I 
perceived she began to be offended; at last I returned 
her the money.' By the word 'this,' Cooke refers to the 
manuscript Latin medical case-book which he translated 
into English, and published in 1657. The conversation 
here recorded would appear to show that Mrs. Hall's 
education had not been of an enlarged character; that 
books and manuscripts, even when they were the pro- 
ductions of her own husband, were not of much interest 
to her." 

If Shaksper had heartlessly deserted his wife and 
children and had left them for years in penury and want 
to take care of themselves as best they could, never con- 
tributing to their support, the children might have grown 
up in poverty and ignorance. But so far as the facts 
show, there was at least no abandonment by him of his 
daughters, and he suffered them to grow up to woman- 
hood without even the advantage of a cheap rudimental 
education. He was with them presumably from day to 
day, from month to month, and from year to year, and 



68 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

had personal knowledge of their want of learning, and yet 
he took no such steps as a father should take, to impart 
or have imparted to them that "knowledge which is the 
wing whereby we fly to heaven." Blind Milton's daughter, 
it is said, read to him and transcribed his poems for him. 
All the heroines of the Shakespeare plays are pictured by 
the real writer as educated and accomplished persons. 

Take the Portia of the Merchant of Venice, for example. 
The real Shakespeare, esteeming her learning and legal 
talent, makes her a presiding judge and eloquent arbiter 
in the case of life and death affecting Antonio, and she 
modestly describes herself as 

" An unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractis'd, 
Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
But she may learn ; happier than this, 
She is not bred so dull, but she can learn." 

And the lovely but ill-fated Desdemona, to justify 
her marrage to Othello, respectfully but courageously 
declared to Brabantio : 

" My noble father, 
I do perceive here a divided duty; 
To you I am bound for life and education ; 
My life and education both do learn me 
How to respect you." 

Here the real Shakespeare explicitly recognizes the 
duty of the parent to educate his children. No one but 
an ignorant and churlish parent would neglect such a 
duty. No decent man would fail in his educational 
duties. But the daughters of William Shaksper — the 
daughters of a man who is believed by the multitude to 



SHAKSPER GAVE HIS CHILDREN NO EDUCATION. 69 

have been the foremost man of all the world in learning 
and ability, were suffered by their father to be as ignorant 
as the Southern negro was in the days of slavery. It is 
a fact not to be disputed that William Shaksper did not 
obey the scriptural injunction to train up his children. 

The reader will notice that I am asserting as an undis- 
puted and indisputable fact, that the two daughters of 
William Shaksper were unable to write their own names. 
No one can contradict the statement of Morgan in his 
"Myth," at page 40, that "although William Shaksper 
enjoyed an income of $25,000 (present value of money) 
at his death, he never had his own children taught to 
read and write, and his daughter Judith signed her mark 
to her marriage bond." This startling statement is 
repeated more emphatically and boldly at page 172 of 
the same work: 

"It is not William Shaksper's fault that he sprang 
from an illiterate family, but that after growing so rich 
as to be able to enjojr an income of $25,000 a year, he 
should never send his children — especially his daughter 
Judith — to school, so that the poor girl on being married, 
on the 11th day of February, 1616, should be obliged to 
sign her marriage bond with a mark, shows, we think, 
that he was not that immortal he would have been had 
he written the topmost literature of the world— the 
Shakespearean Drama!" 

One can readily understand that the illiterate son of 
illiterate parents, continuing illiterate through life, might 
naturally bring up his own children in ignorance, but the 
son of an illiterate father who had made for himself an 
education and who had discovered what blessings an 
education had conferred upon him, would be not only 



70 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

willing but resolute and zealous to confer the blessings 
and pleasures attendant upon education on his own 
children. The parent emancipated from the slavery of 
ignorance is always anxious to give to his own offspring 
the light of knowledge. 

The argument for Shaksper runs about in this wise: 
William Shaksper was born of poor but honest parents. 
Being themselves illiterate, they saw what the advan- 
tages of education were; so they sent their boy to the 
Stratford grammar school, where in a few months' time, 
less than six, he learned not merely to read, write, and 
cipher, but he also acquired a knowledge of Latin, Greek, 
Italian, French, German, and Spanish, as well as of his 
own mother tongue. He learned there also, or picked 
up at odd times, all that is worth knowing in geology, 
medicine, law, theology, botany, chemistry, geography, 
history, ancient and modern, mythology, and every 
science, not omitting divine philosophy. He also there 
and thus imbibed the doctrine of the cycles and discovered 
the law of gravitation, by the world falsely ascribed to 
Newton, and the law of the circulation of the blood as 
wrongly credited to Harvey. 

It may be irreverent, but it certainly is not irrelevant 
to remark "What a great school that Stratford child's 
school must have been, and what a blessing it would be 
if we had such grammar schools now. It takes a long 
time, a very long time in our public schools, liberally 
supported as they are by general taxation, to acquire in 
this twentieth century even a moderate knowledge of 
English. They must have had a double-distilled high- 
pressure system in that Stratford school." It appears, 
according to the Shaksperite theory, that there was a 



SHAKSPER GAVE HIS CHILDREN NO EDUCATION. 71 

marked difference between the illiterate father and the 
learned son as to their educational views. According to 
that theory, the unlearned father, seeing the advantages 
of knowledge, gave his boy a grand education of several 
long months at a child's school; while the learned son, 
seeing the disadvantages of knowledge, gave his own 
children no education at all. 

It is clear from a perusal of the plays that the author 
or authors of them was or were conversant with the Old 
and New Testaments. Wadsworth and Bishop Vincent 
clearly show this, and cite the biblical words and expres- 
sions which abound in and permeate the plays. The 
writer or writers of the plays must have been familiar 
with the prayer of the Psalmist " that our sons may be as 
plants grown up in their youth and that our daughters 
may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of 
a palace." He must have read the first and second 
chapters of the Book of Proverbs, and he must have agreed 
with Solomon that " happy is the man that findeth wisdom, 
and the man that getteth understanding, for the mer- 
chandise of it is better than silver, and the gain thereof 
than fine gold." 

Is it either probable or possible that a learned and 
studious man, familiar with the Bible, such as the writer 
of the plays and poems must have been, could have treated 
his children as William Shaksper treated his by suffering 
them to grow up in ignorance and in such gross ignorance 
that they could not even write their own names? Credat 
Judceus Apella, non ego. 

This established fact of Shaksper's failure to give his 
children any education when he had both the opportunity 
and the means to do so, is another link, and a very strong 



72 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

one, in the chain of convincing facts which unite to nega- 
tive the claim set up, not by him, but by his blinded 
worshipers, to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays. 

Right here I desire the reader, in connection with the 
presumption raised by his failure to educate his own 
children, to notice the fact that no claim to the author- 
ship of the Shakespeare plays or of any plays was ever 
made by William Shaksper. He never evinced any pride 
of authorship such as writers naturally have in their 
works; he never sought for or scolded a publisher or book- 
seller, as Heywood, Drayton, and other contemporaries 
did; he never dedicated a play to anybody; he never sold 
or transferred a manuscript to any one ; he never indulged 
in any literary controversies, quarrels, or compliments 
with any writer of the time; he never did or said any- 
thing to show that he was an author. This fact in his 
life-history tends to aid the presumption that it was by 
reason of his own want of education that his children 
were suffered to grow up in ignorance. It will be further 
shown in a subsequent chapter, in support of this pre- 
sumption, that he permitted the works of others to be 
circulated in a name like his without any disclaimer. 
Only a very ignorant or a very unscrupulous man would 
do that. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

shaksper's illiteracy made manifest by his 
chirography. 

" You must not now deny it is your hand: 
Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase; 
Or say 'tis not your seal, nor your invention.'" 

—Twelfth Night, v, 1. 

The strongest and most convincing fact in Shaksper's 
true life-history against his ability to write either a play 
or poem, is the one which is the least urged and employed 
for the instruction of the people. I refer to the irre- 
fragable proof of Shaksper's inability to write the king's 
English at all, or at least with such facility as would 
enable him to write a connected and grammatically 
arranged sentence. 

William H. Smith of London, England, was the first 
writer who asserted that Shaksper could not write; but 
the man who has done the most to bring this powerful 
item of evidence against the Shaksper claim before the 
literary world is William H. Burr, heretofore mentioned, 
a noted writer and expert in handwriting, and formerly 
an official stenographer of the Senate of the United States. 
To him, more than to any other person, the credit should 
be given for exposing the ignorance of Shaksper, as clearly 
and conclusively manifested by his handwriting. This 
term, handwriting, or the manner in which a person 



74 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

writes, includes the formation of the characters, the separa- 
tion of the words, and other features distinguishing the 
written matter, as a mechanical result, from the writing 
of other persons. The most competent experts, recog- 
nized as such by the courts of law, are attorneys at law, 
bank officers, bookkeepers, business men, county officials, 
teachers of writing, and other persons who in their busi- 
ness have had large experience in the examination and 
study of handwriting. 

If the reader of this chapter had never heard of Shak- 
sper'snamein connection with plays or poems or any liter- 
ary work, and if the plays were either credited to some 
other person or to no one in particular, and if the signa- 
tures, facsimiles of which I am about to exhibit, were 
shown to the reader for the first time, with a request for 
his opinion as to the literacy or illiteracy of the maker 
of the signatures, I am quite sure that his opinion, after 
a careful and disinterested examination, would be that 
William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon was an ignoramus. 

The only specimens of Shaksper's handwriting extant, 
assuredly authentic, are five in number. 

In the spring of 1613, when Shaksper was nearly 
forty-nine years old, he purchased from one Henry Walker 
a house and lot near the Blackfriars Theatre, and the 
deed to which he affixed his name bears the date of March 
10, 1613. On the following day he mortgaged the premises 
to Walker to secure a part of the purchase money and 
signed the mortgage. In the year 1768 the mortgage 
deed, which was dated on the eleventh of March, was 
found among the title deeds of the Rev. Mr. Fetherston- 
haugh of Oxted in the County of Surrey, and was pre- 
sented by him to David Garrick. From that deed Malone 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPH Y. 75 

made a facsimile, as set out in his "Inquiry" at page 136. 
The following is a reproduction of that signature: 

) 




Afterward, on March 25, 1616, a month before his 
death, his name was placed on each one of the three 
sheets of paper of which that last will consists, which has 
been rendered famous, or as some would say — infamous, 
by the bequest to his wife of his second-best bed. He 
did not write his own will, and it was drawn by one Francis 
Collins, a solicitor living at Warwick. 

Here is a facsimile of the three will signatures: 

Throughout the body of the will, as Sir Frederic Mad- 
den, who examined the original will, states, the scrivener 
has written the testator's name "Shakspeare," whereas 
on the outside, it is docketed twice by the Clerk of the 
Prerogative Court as the will of Mr. Shackspere. Here 



C^ 



7G THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

was a learned scrivener, employed specially by "the 
myriad-minded man," sometimes called "our immortal 
dramatic poet," and this Warwick solicitor, who ought 
to have known his fellow countryman personally and at 
least by reputation, wrote the testator's name incorrectly, 
and the man who is pictured by commentators as a very 
industrious, careful, and learned man, suffered the solicitor 
to make and perpetuate such an egregious blunder as to 
his surname. Even the clerk of the Prerogative Court 
seems to have been ignorant of the proper name of the 
so-called greatest poet of the world, and at his death 
dockets his will as that of "Mr. Shackspere." To show 
in this connection the various and contradictory opinions 
of the leading commentators as to how the Stratford 
man's name should be spelled, I quote from Madden's 
observations, premising that it seems to have never 
occurred to him or to these disputatious wiseacres whom 
he names that the man's handwriting was worthy of a 
close and careful examination as to whether he knew 
enough to write his own name correctly or to correct an 
erroneous spelling of his name by others. 

Sir Francis says, at page ten of his communication, 
"I must beg leave, before I conclude, to make a few 
remarks on the orthography of Shakspere's name, as 
written by himself. 

"There are five acknowledged genuine signatures of 
Shakspere in existence. Of these, three are attached to 
his will in the Prerogative Court, executed 25 March 
1615-16; the fourth is written on a mortgage deed, dated 
11th March 1612-13, of a small estate purchased by 
Shakspere of Henry Walker in Blackfriars; and the fifth, 
on the counterpart of the deed of bargain and sale, dated 
10th March 1612-13. 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 77 

"From a comparison of these with each other, and with 
the autograph now first brought forward, it is most cer- 
tain, in my opinion, that the poet always wrote his name 
1 Shakspere,' and consequently that those who have 
inserted an e after the k, or an a in the second syllable, 
do not write the same (as far as we are able to judge) in 
the same manner as the poet himself uniformly would 
authorize us to do. This I state in opposition to Chalmers 
and Drake, who assert that 'all the genuine signatures 
of Shakspeare are dissimilar.' 

"Let me consider them separately, not according to the 
priority of dates, but in the order they were introduced 
to the notice of the public. In the year 1776, George 
Steevens traced from the will of Shakspere the three 
signatures attached to it (one to each sheet), and they 
were engraved for the first time in the second edition of 
Shakspere, by Johnson and Steevens, in 1788. They have 
since been engraved in nearly all the subsequent editions; 
in Malone's Inquiry, 1796; in Chalmer's Apology, 1797; 
in Harding's Essence of Malone, 1801; in Ireland's Con- 
fessions, 1805; in Drake's Shakspeare and his Times, 1817; 
and in J. G. Nichols' Autographs, 1829, in which work 
they are for the second time traced from the original 
document. The first of these signatures, subscribed on 
the first sheet, at the right-hand corner of the paper, is 
decidedly 'William Shakspere,' and no one has ventured 
a doubt respecting the last six letters. The second signa- 
ture is also clearly 'Will'm Shakspere,' although from 
the tail of the letter h of the line above intervening between 
the e and r, Chalmers would fain raise an idle quibble as 
to the omission of a letter. The third signature has been 
the subject of greater controversy, and has usually been 
read, 'By me, William Shakspeare.' 



78 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"The next document is the mortgage deed. From the 
label of this, the facsimile in Malone's edition of 
Shakspere, 1790, was executed, bearing this appearance, 
'Wm Shakspe.'" 

The third document cited by Madden is the counter- 
part of the deed of bargain and sale, dated the day before 
the mortgage deed. "Here the signature," he says, "is 
beyond all cavil or suspicion 'William Shaksper.'" 

The "sweet swan of Avon" seems, from the way he 
spelled his own name, to have been the antitype of that 
well-known and cheerful witness in the famous case of 
Bardell versus Pickwick who answered to the name of 
Samuel Weller. In that memorable trial, when Mr. 
Weller stepped into the witness box, the little Judge 
inquired, " What's your name, sir?" "Sam Weller, my 
Lord," replied that gentleman. "Do you spell it with a 
For a W?" inquired the Judge. "That depends upon 
the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord," replied 
Sam, "I never had occasion to spell it more than once 
or twice in my life, but I spells it with a V." Here a 
voice in the gallery exclaimed aloud, "Quite right, too, 
Samuel, quite right. Put it down a We, my Lord, put 
it down a We." 

Madden puts William's name down as Shakspere, 
Chalmers puts it down as Shakspeare, Malone puts it down 
both ways, and the Wallis document puts it down as 
Shaksper. 

Shaksper appears to have been so careless or ignorant 
as to the way he should spell his own name that he, like 
the Sam whom Dickens has immortalized, never had 
occasion to spell his name more than once or twice in his 
life, and then in such a reckless way as to the vowels as 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 79 

to let the spelling depend upon the taste and fancy of 
the speller. 

The signatures above set out comprise all the authentic 
writings of William Shaksper, which relic hunters, anti- 
quarians, commentators, historians, and pertinacious and 
enthusiastic searchers have been able to unearth after 
nearly three centuries of assiduous inquiry and labor not 
only in every probable receptacle in Great Britain, but in 
every part of the world. 

Besides the five signatures, there are two signatures 
which may be his — one of them on a copy of the Montaigne 
of Florio and the other on a volume of the plays in the 
■ possession of Mr. Gunther, a candy-maker of Chicago. 
But the two, even if genuine, are no improvement on the 
other five. By examining the Montaigne signature, as 
found in Madden's "Communication to the Society of 
Antiquaries," the reader can judge for himself. 

A few years ago, a volume of North's Plutarch of 1603 
was sold to the Boston Public Library, which has the words 
"Wilm Shakspere" written in it. Commenting upon the 
question of the determination of its authenticity by com- 
parison, the learned librarian very truly observes that 
" the field of comparison of the library signatures with 
the known originals is narrow, being limited to those 
written between 1613 and 1616, all of which show such a 
lack of facility in handwriting as would almost preclude 
the possibility of Shaksper's having written the dramas 
attributed to him, so great is the apparent illiteracy of 
his signatures." 

If the reader will critically and dispassionately examine 
the facsimiles given in Verplanck's or Drake's or Malone's 
editions of the plays, he must inevitably conclude that a 



80 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

man, who while in apparent good health wrote so slowly, 
so laboriously, so wretchedly and so incorrectly, could not 
before that time have written the magnificent plays which 
adorn our literature. If a man whose Christian name was 
William should enter the office of an attorney or scrivener 
to sign his name to a deed or mortgage or will prepared 
for him, and he should slowly and laboriously scrawl the 
letters " Willin" for William, and so write as to let each let- 
ter stand by itself, the draftsman of the instrument would 
know at once that the signer was a very ignorant man. 

I often wonder why English experts in handwriting, 
who have access to the originals of four at least of the 
undoubted signatures of William Shaksper, made by him 
in the ripe maturity of his manhood, do not critically 
analyze these signatures for the benefit of the people who 
desire to know whether or not the affix " William Shake- 
speare "or " William Shake-speare " was a mask for the real 
author or authors of the plays or only a publisher's trick. 

It does not, however, require an accomplished expert 
in chirography to determine by a careful examination that 
William Shaksper could not have written the plays and 
poems. Rapid writers, more especially editors and law- 
yers, may write illegible scrawls, but they either run 
their letters together or make them quickly when they 
are separated. 

Horace Greeley and Rufus Choate wrote very fast and 
so illegibly that it was hard to decipher the words written 
by them. They were learned and intellectual giants, but 
no respectable judge of handwriting would say that their 
handwriting showed that they were ignorant men. He 
would pronounce them rapid and careless writers. But 
where a man, when asked to write his name, separates 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 81 

each letter as Shaksper did, and so constructs them as to 
show slowness and great labor in forming them, besides 
misspelling his name in the attempt, he forms against 
himself that verdict or sentence which the writer of act 
four, scene two, of Much Ado About Nothing put into 
the mouth of Dogberry when he said, "0, that he were 
here to write me down an ass!" 

In order that the reader may judge for himself as to 
the great difference between the handwriting of the igno- 
rant Shaksper and that of the two illustrious men whom 
I have mentioned, one of whom was the great editor of 
the " New York Tribune " and the other the foremost lawyer 
of Massachusetts, I here insert the facsimile of a letter 
written by Horace Greeley and also of one written by 
Rufus Choate, for the purpose of comparison. I have 
purposely selected the handwriting of Horace Greeley and 
Rufus Choate for illustration because they were rapid 
writers, whose words, committed to paper, it was and is 
hard for the reader to interpret. In "Modern Eloquence,' ' 
Vol. 10, at page 210, the following anecdote is related 
as to the difficulty of deciphering the handwriting of 
Greeley. Greeley once wrote a note to a brother editor 
in New York whose writing was, if possible, equally as 
illegible as his own. The recipient of the note, not being 
able to read it, sent it back by the same messenger to Mr. 
Greeley for elucidation. Supposing it to be the answer 
to his own note, Mr. Greeley looked over it, but was 
likewise unable to read it, and said to the boy, " Go — take 
it back. What does the fool mean?" "Yes, sir," said 
the boy, "that is just what he says." 

The first is a facsimile of a letter from Horace Greeley, 
which reads as follows: 



S<IIg {Tribune, 

$S rem Aknum. 

JSn»M33ftMn ffrlbunr, 

(1 Pisa AvMx. 

CQ'tMg Snbunt, 



^: 



EcW-' 



Jimpz. 



*£*** 






t?£^-*6 










Q^tf^*J^^ ^r^ 







ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 83 

Reproduced in type, it reads thus: 

Kr T a r nnum. OFFICE OF THE TRIBUNE, 

Semi-weekly Tribune 
$3 per annum. 

week* Tribune New York, Jany 20, 1863. 

Sir: I have yours of the 15th. I know well that an 
able and thoroughly loyal journal at Louisville would do 
good, but its immediate influence would be slight, and the 
life of the Republic is no longer a question of years, but 
of months, perhaps of weeks. 

There is beside, one sound general rule — a newspaper 
that can not support itself can support nothing else. If 
there be anti-slavery people in Ky. they will call forth or 
obtain anti-slavery journals; if not, they would not take 
them though printed next door. Yours, 

E. A. Maginness, Esq. Horace Greeley. 

An analysis of the Greeley letter will show the reader 
that the famous editor was a very rapid writer who cared 
very little for the proper and regular formation of the 
letters. With him, the chief thought in writing was that 
his hand in forming the letters should keep pace with the 
emanations from his mind. The shorter he could make a 
letter of the alphabet without destroying it altogether, the 
better it was for his editorial and epistolary purposes. 
He did not labor or worry over the formation of any word. 
The only respite he gave to the steady impulse of the pen 
was in the matter of italization when he desired to call 
the reader's attention to some particular fact or principle. 
When he wrote the letter above set out in the dark days 
of the war for the union, he italicized the word "imme- 
diate" to impress the reader with the fact that the estab- 
lishment of a newspaper was of no importance when the 



84 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

life of the republic was not a question of years, but of 
weeks. When he enunciated the principle that a news- 
paper that can not support itself can support nothing else, 
he paused in his rapid dashing down of words to italicize 
the declaration so that it should fasten itself on the atten- 
tion of the recipient of the letter. Outside of the italiza- 
tion of an important fact, or of what he believed to be a 
cardinal principle, he never paused in his rapid flight with 
the pen. When he wrote his name, he formed the letters 
so rapidly that all the letters, both of the Christian name 
and surname, were run together with no separating space. 
His epistle to Maginness indicates that he was so rapid a 
writer that he cared a little, but a very little, for the for- 
mation of the characters or the separation of the words. 
I now append a facsimile of a letter of Rufus Choate, 
as follows : 



ty-fy^L-J/- Jfc~ 



A— J*» 






~ a,. #L £* -»*>& y ^ <~~6%* 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPH Y. 85 

Reproduced in type, Choate's letter reads thus: 

To Maj. Will Stevens. 

Dear Sir: I find it impossible to accommodate my 

three students and myself in one office; therefore am 

under the necessity of leaving that which I now occupy. 

Will you be good enough to apprise your mother that I 

shall cease to occupy this office after the last day of the 

present month; till then of course I shall pay rent. 

Your obt. serv't, 

R. Choate. 
Dec. 18, 1830. 

The first impression produced by an inspection of the 
crow-tracks of Rufus Choate, the renowned lawyer and 
statesman, is that he cared nothing about the reader's 
ability to decipher the words, whether proper or common. 
Thus he galloped over the proper name " Stevens" in the 
first line. Caring nothing for the formation of the letters, 
he shortened his letters as well as his words whenever he 
could, as for instance when he formed the letter d in 
"find", y in "necessity," and the figure 8 in "1830" and 
"18." He took no pains to keep his letters together, so 
that while he wrote very fast he did not write as fast as 
Greeley did, and much more illegibly. 

Contrariwise, William Shaksper's handwriting shows 
that he labored over the formation of each letter, not for 
the purpose of making it fair, round, and regular, but in 
order to make it so that it would pass muster as a letter. 
This slowness indicates clearly that he did not wield the 
pen of a ready writer: but rather that when he was com- 
pelled to put down his name to a legal document, like a 
deed, mortgage, or will, it was a hard, very hard matter 



86 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

for him to form the letters to make up his name. It is 
enough to disqualify Shaksper as a writer or author to 
rest the argument from the acknowledged signatures of 
the man on the apparent slowness and want of facility 
in writing displayed thereby, without suggesting that no 
two of the five signatures are at all alike, except the two 
which have the appearance of being traced. Whether 
traced or not, all the signatures are conspicuous for their 
wretchedness of execution. The fact that the name is 
not uniformly spelled also strongly supports the theory, 
not only of illiteracy but of hand guiding as to two of the 
signatures. Any intelligent person can readily detect the 
difference between the handwriting of a rapid, busy, care- 
less writer who cares more for the matter than the manner, 
and the slow, hesitating, deformed, and separated strokes 
of an illiterate person. 

An intelligent and scholarly but interested critic has 
maintained that the handwriting of such an eminent 
statesman as the late Senator Joseph E. McDonald of 
Indiana, was as bad as that of Shaksper. I, therefore, 
annex a facsimile and reproduction of one of McDonald's 
letters, to show how absurd the critic's statements are. 

The reader will notice that Mr. McDonald did as law- 
yers and well-trained business men do when they write 
letters. They generally subordinate elegance and neat- 
ness in handwriting to speed. There is no careful fol- 
lowing of copy, as in the case of a model phrase set 
by a teacher of writing for his pupils to imitate, but 
rather a mingling of haste with just enough care exer- 
cised in the formation of the letters to enable the client 
or the business correspondent to decipher the words of 
the letter. 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 87 



it&-avi.a4vo/*4 , ■J^Cto^' JLfl- <&*■ 



&tS> »/>**-•- /^*} (fa**. ~*£ far***"* 4+~<*&r ^ (/&» — 




88 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Indianapolis, August 28, 1882. 
Hon. John Stotzenburg. 

Dear Sir: Your favor enclosing proof slips of your 
dialogue on prohibition has been rec'd. I am very much 
pleased with the manner you treat the subject and think 
it will do great good especially if it could have a good 
circulation among the farmers. I have given the slip to 
Mr. Shoemaker and he promises to make copious extracts 
from it, but thought it too long for a daily. What would 
the Ledger print it in supplement for? We are poor 
indeed, but want to make the best of what we have. I 
spoke to Shoemaker in regard to Cottom, but find him 
disinclined to incur the expense. Every evidence is 
favorable to our success, but we must work for it. 

Yrs in haste, 

J. E. McDonald. 

No question can be raised as to lack of facility in 
writing by an inspection of the McDonald letter. It is 
evident that the Senator wrote fast and much more 
plainly and with more regard to the formation of the 
characters than either Greeley or Choate. An inspection 
of such letters as the three hereinbefore set out shows 
that the question raised is not the issue of legibility or 
illegibility, but of the ability to write at all or with the 
facility required of a writer of books. The question 
raised upon the trial of the McDonald will case, so far as 
the handwriting of Senator McDonald was concerned, was 
not as to whether he wrote well or ill or legibly or illegibly, 
but as to whether it was a peculiarity of the testator's 
signatures that the word "McDonald" was not connected all 
the way through. But to recur to the Shaksper sig- 
natures. 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 89 

Reader, examine, if you please, the S in the Shaksper 
signature, and, if you choose, try with a pen or pencil to 
make such an S. I invite you now to look how correctly 
and elegantly this great scholar and master workman of 
the Muses spells "William." Put yourself, if you please, 
in his place and remember the solemn occasion. It is a 
very serious business transaction, you will bear in mind, 
no less than the execution of a last will; and you know 
that at such a time a man or woman is always anxious to 
do the proper and correct thing and make the signature 
as good as possible. If such a distinguished scholar, for 
instance, as Gladstone was, should, at the age of forty, 
in the very prime of life, have been required to sign his 
full name to a last will, we should expect him to know 
how to spell his Christian name correctly and to do it 
pretty quickly. But a great genius like Shaksper, who 
sprang like Minerva full-armed from his birth into the 
field of literature, contrived with much ado to write his 
Christian name "Willin." And just see how carefully he 
wrote that Willin. Look at the capital W and the dis- 
tance between it and the i; then notice the distance 
between the I, the i and the n. These specimens may be 
called absurdly varied. Burr, commenting on the signa- 
tures, says, "The spelling of the five autographs of the 
' Bard of Avon ' is S-h-a-k-s-p-e-r, without a final e . 
This is plain enough in the earliest signature, subscribed 
to the deed of March 10, 1613. 

"The signature to the mortgage, dated March 11, 
1613, reads 'William Shakspe.' There was no space left 
for another letter on the sealed tag, so he wrote above the 
e what looks like an a, but was probably an attempt 
at an r. 



90 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"The next autograph was written three years later, 
being the first of the three signatures to as many sheets 
of his will. It has a final letter, which has been mistaken 
for an e, but is a German script r, much like our script w 
tilted up at the left. Woodbury's 'Method of Learning 
the German Language/ Lesson III, has it. 

"In the remaining autographs the terminal letters 
after p are illegible." 

In the address to the reader in the Folio of 1623, it was 
asserted by Heminge and Condell as to Shaksper that 
"we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers." 
Of course, every person of common sense knows that it 
is utterly impossible for a ready writer to work in the 
composition of a book with pen and ink without many 
blots and erasures, and as to any author such a state- 
ment would be false. Corrections and emendations are 
necessary and inevitable. But the statement of Heminge 
and Condell may be very true as to Shaksper, for to judge 
from his handwriting he could not indite a single line to 
be blotted. It could not have been true of a ready writer, 
who was daily and very often hastily preparing, revising, 
and composing plays for theatrical use. It might possibly 
be true of a very slow and painstaking writer like John 
Webster, who in his White Devil, in the address to the 
reader, says: 

"To those who report I was a long time in finishing 
this tragedy, I confess I do not write with a goose quill 
winged with two feathers, and if they will needs make it 
my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides to 
Alcestides, a tragedy writer. Alcestides objecting that 
Euripides had only, in three days, composed three verses, 
whereas himself had written three hundred, ' Thou tellest 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 91 

truth/ quoth he, ' but here's the difference— thine shall 
only be read for three days, whereas mine shall continue 
three ages.'" 

The same story as to entire freedom from paper-blotting 
is applied by the stationer Humphrey Moseley to John 
Fletcher. He says in the introduction to the Beaumont 
and Fletcher folio of 1647, " Whatever I have seen of Mr. 
Fletcher's own hand is free from interlining, and his 
friends affirm that he never writ any one thing twice." 
The editor of the 1811 edition of the works of the two 
poets says, in a note appended to this remark of Moseley's, 
"May we not suppose this to have been a sort of com- 
monplace compliment? but surely it is a very injudicious 
one. A similar assertion applied to Shakespeare has 
afforded much conversation in the literary world." 

As I have heretofore stated, it is no argument against 
Shaksper's ability to write plays that he was poor, or that 
his parents were poor, or that he had been a poacher or 
butcher in early life, or that he married a woman eight 
years older than himself, to whom he was unkind, or that 
he was bibulous or licentious. But if William Shaksper 
at the age of forty-nine, and after the poems and plays 
had been written, could scarcely write his own name and 
could only write it slowly, incorrectly, and laboriously in 
the manner that illiterate and uneducated men write 
their names, that fact is an unanswerable and irrefragable 
proof of his inability to write even one line of poetry, good 
or bad. He was absolutely unable to write at all, if the 
attempts at signatures are his own genuine acts. It can 
not be shown that Shaksper was drunk when he signed 
the deed and mortgage. Neither can it be said that he 
was in articulo mortis when he so slowly and painfully 



92 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

scrawled the signatures to the will, for it was signed on 
March 25th, and he did not die for a month afterward. 
Edwards, in his "Shaksper not Shakespeare," page 401, 
commenting on the five acknowledged signatures after a 
very careful examination of them, says, "Of the five 
signatures, no one is Shakespeare; the two on the deeds 
are Shakspar and Shaksper; the first on the will is Shaksper, 
the second, Shaksper, and, dismissing Malone's super- 
fluous stroke, the third is Shaksper. Nowhere is there 
any Shakespeare, the name under which the plays were 
published. 

"Supposing for a moment that one hand could have 
written the five signatures, what does it prove? In the 
first — on the mortgage — he writes Wm for William; in 
the next, made at the same time, he writes William at 
length, but on top of the surname. Again, in the first of 
the will signatures, he writes William above the surname. 
The next time he attempts to get the names in line, but 
misses it considerably, the given name — now spelled 
Willin — being raised to the level of the top of the sur- 
name, and moreover it is separated from the latter by a 
tolerably wide space. The third time he writes William, 
he gets it at the proper distance from the surname, but 
the latter has tumbled, and is almost wholly below the 
level of the given name. 

"These little things show that the writer was not in the 
habit of signing his own name, or accustomed to the use 
of a pen. Is it to be believed that a man who, for fully 
twenty years, had been in active business, if he could 
write, never attained a fixed and recognizable signature; 
that he never wrote his name in a straight line; that in 
the same hour, and on the same document, he would sign 



ILLITERACY MADE MANIFEST BY CHIROGRAPHY. 93 

his name William and Willin, and his surname in as many 
different styles of letters as he made signatures? 

"Skottowe said in 1826, 'In regard to the signatures to 
the will, a sort of doubt has been cast on the first and 
second by the suggestion that they might have been in 
the handwriting of the notary employed on the occasion.' 

" Drake says, 'The autographs present us with five 
signatures which, singular as it may appear, all vary 
either in the mode of writing or mode of spelling. The 
first appears Wm Shakspea, the second William Shaksper. 
The three will signatures, it is remarkable, differ consider- 
ably, especially in the surnames, for in the first we have 
Shackspere; in the second, Shakspere; in the third, 
Shakespeare. 

" 'My own opinion is that William Shakspere never 
learned to write and that he at no time signed his name. 
Had William as a boy learned to write, as a man he would 
have employed but one alphabet, and not as many alpha- 
bets as he made signatures. Any business man will wit- 
ness that a correspondent of his who sends a different 
signature with every communication is not doing his own 
writing, but Tom, Dick, and Harry are doing it for him. 
So it was with this Shaksper.' " 

I might stop here and submit the whole question of 
Shaksper's inability to write plays to the judgment of 
impartial critics, but there are other facts to be presented 
and several misrepresentations to be exposed and cor- 
rected, to which I desire to call the attention of the stu- 
dious reader. 



CHAPTER IX. 

shaksper's utter indifference to literary 
proprieties. 

" Learning is but an adjunct to our self, 
And where we are our learning likewise is." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 3. 

Men generally take a very great pride in the poetical 
or prose offspring of their brains and especially if the play, 
the poem, or the prose story or history created or unfolded 
pleases the public. Moreover, all honorable and decent 
men of intelligence, when a name like or somewhat like 
their own is unlawfully or wrongly used by the publisher 
of a book, refuse to claim or receive credit for the published 
thoughts of other men. 

The first proposition should be modified to this extent, 
that if a poor and needy author should sell the product 
of his brain outright to another, thereby surrendering 
all his rights therein, he might wholly forget or at least 
no longer care for the welfare of his abandoned offspring. 
If, therefore, the fact could be shown that Shaksper ever 
wrote a play or plays and sold it or them or any of them, 
as Michael Drayton, Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, and 
other writers of plays did for paltry sums to Henslowe or 
any other proprietor of a theatre, the man's indifference 
to the plays which went about in a name similar to his 
would be perhaps explainable. But it nowhere appears 
that Shaksper ever gave, sold, assigned, or transferred a 
play or poem or prose writing to anybody. That he was 
utterly indifferent to the plays which are now attributed 
to him is conceded by all the commentators. He never 



INDIFFERENCE TO LITERARY PROPRIETIES. 95 

mentioned them to friend or foe. He never claimed or 
pretended that he ever wrote or revised a play and he 
made no mention of any literary friends to anybody or in 
anyway. Phillips, in his "Outlines," Vol. 2, page 262, 
referring to his will, says: "Not only is there no mention 
of Drayton, Ben Jonson, or any of his other literary 
friends, but an entire absence of reference to his own 
compositions. When these facts are considered adjunc- 
tively with his want of vigilance in not having previously 
secured authorized publications of any one of his dramas 
and with other episodes of his life, it is difficult to resist 
the conviction that he was indifferent to the posthumous 
fate of his own writings." I would put the matter a little 
more strongly than Phillips puts it, and far beyond the 
conviction of mere indifference: I would say that when 
the other episodes of Shaksper's life founded on fact are 
considered, as for instance his uttter inability to write his 
own name with that facility which is absolutely required 
of a scholarly writer, such as the author or authors of the 
plays and poems must have been; and considering also 
the episode of suffering his children to grow up in igno- 
rance, it is difficult to resist the conviction that some one 
else wrote the plays and poems with which he is credited. 
As to the second proposition, if Shaksper was a man of 
intelligence, he was then a dishonorable and a very mean 
man, for his own deluded worshipers concede that he 
permitted books written by other men to be published 
under his name or a name similar to his— books of which 
he never wrote or composed a single line. The reader 
will notice the qualification of this proposition, by the 
use of the phrase "if Shaksper was a man of intelligence." 
If he was not, and if he was the ignoramus which his 



96 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

handwriting plainly proves him to have been, he might 
have been utterly oblivious to the uses to which his name 
was put. Phillips has to admit the correctness of the 
second proposition, based on the hypothesis that Shaksper 
was a man of any intelligence, for he says that "it is 
extremely improbable that Shaksper in that age of small 
London and few publishers could have been ignorant of 
the use made of his name in the first edition of the Pas- 
sionate Pilgrim." By the Passionate Pilgrim, Phillips 
means that in the year 1599, when Shaksper was thirty- 
five years old, W. Jaggard published a book of poems by 
the following title 

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM 

BY W. SHAKESPEARE 

a book containing poetry actually written by Richard 
Barnfield. Shaksper permitted this fraud to be practiced 
without objection or remonstrance; and in 1612, when 
Shaksper was forty-eight years old, Jaggard issued another 
edition of the same book, purporting to be by W. Shake- 
speare, in which he added a translation of two of Ovid's 
epistles which had been made by the poet Thomas Hey- 
wood and previously printed by him in 1609 with his 
name in the Troja Britannica. While Shaksper never 
troubled himself about the fraudulent use of the name of 
William Shakespeare as the author, Heywood, in 1612, 
exposed the wrong that had been done to him and com- 
pelled Jaggard to take the name "Shakespeare" from 
the title page. 

A far more remarkable operation of the same kind, 
as Phillips puts it, was perpetrated in the year 1600 when 
Thomas Pavier, another bookseller, brought out the play 



INDIFFERENCE TO LITERARY PROPRIETIES. 97 

of the first part of Sir John Oldcastle with the name of 
William Shakespeare as the author on the title page. If 
William Shaksper was a resident of London at that time, 
and if he was at all familiar with actors, theatrical man- 
agers, and playwrights, he must have known that Michael 
Drayton, Anthony Monday, Robert Wilson, and Richard 
Hathaway were the makers of that play, and whether he 
did or did not so know, he knew, at any rate, that he, 
Shaksper, did not write a single line of it. And yet 
to-day if Henslowe's Diary had not been discovered, the 
Shaksper worshipers would have found the same Shake- 
spearean beauties in Sir John Oldcastle that they do in 
the other plays found in the Folio of 1623, and they would 
have written books to show that he wrote it in his comic 
period, since they picture him as having separate mental 
grades at different periods of his life. They would have fal- 
len into line under von Schlegel and followed his leadership. 

It is amusing in connection with the history of this 
publication to read the comments of Collier upon it in 
Chapter 13 of his "Life of William Shaksper." 

"We ought not to pass over without notice," he says, 
" a circumstance which happened in 1600, and is connected 
with the question of the authorized or unauthorized pub- 
lication of the Shakespeare plays. In that year, a quarto 
impression of a play called 'The First part of the true 
and honorable history of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, 
the Good Lord Cobham,' came out, on the title page of 
which the name of William Shakespeare appeared at 
length. We find by Henslowe's Diary that this drama 
was in fact the authorship of four poets, Anthony Mon- 
day, Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson, and Richard Hath- 
away, and to attribute it to Shakespeare was evidently a 



98 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

mere trick by the bookseller, Thomas Pavier, in the hope 
that it would be bought as his work. Malone remarked 
upon this fraud, but he was not aware, when he wrote, 
that it had been detected and corrected at the time, for 
since his day more than one copy of 'the first part, etc., 
of Sir John Oldcastle' has come to light, upon the title 
page of which no name is to be found, the bookseller 
apparently having been compelled to cancel the leaf con- 
taining it. From the indifference Shakespeare seems to 
have displayed on matters of this kind, we may possibly 
conclude that the cancel was made at the instance of one 
of the four poets who were the real authors of the play; 
we have no means of speaking decisively upon the point, 
and the step may have been in some way connected with 
the objection taken by living members of the Oldcastle 
family to the name which had been assigned by Shake- 
speare in the first instance to Falstaff." 

A more reasonable conjecture than Collier's first one 
would be that one or all of the four players who com- 
posed this play authorized it to be published in the name 
of Shakespeare and afterward had it canceled for the 
reason conjectured by Collier in connection with the 
Oldcastle family's objection to the use of the name "Old- 
castle"; or a still more plausible conjecture would be that 
the man who bought the reversion of old plays, and who 
was abused by Jonson as the poet ape, might have pur- 
chased it from Henslowe and had it published in the 
name of William Shakespeare or Shake-speare. It appears 
that Thomas Dekker made additions to the play of Sir 
John Oldcastle. This is shown on pages 236 and 239 of 
Henslowe's Diary from entries of payments to him by 
Henslowe therefor. 



INDIFFERENCE TO LITERARY PROPRIETIES. 99 

Now while Shaksper, with all this knowledge, if an 
intelligent man, suffered Pavier to put the name of Wil- 
liam Shakespeare as the author of this play on the title 
page, the real facts are, as indicated in the receipt given 
in the year 1599, here copied from Henslowe's Diary, that 
Shaksper had nothing to do with either part of this play. 

"This 16th day of October 99 receved by me, Thomas 
Dounton, of Phillipp Henchlowe, to pay Mr. Monday, 
Mr. Drayton and Mr. Wilson and Hathaway for the first 
part of the Lyfe of Sir John Ouldcasstell, and in earnest 
of the second parte, for the use of the compayny ten 
pounds." 

This comedy was produced at the Rose Theatre in 
November, 1599, and it took so well that Henslowe gave 
Drayton and the other poets a gratuity in addition to the 
contract price. If Shaksper was a man of ordinary intelli- 
gence, with the ability to read and write, his conduct as 
above detailed was inexcusable. But his silence and 
sufferance as to this and all the other plays can be explained 
and excused, if he was as ignorant as his handwriting 
proclaims him to be. It can be also excused on another 
very reasonable hypothesis. If one of the writers of the 
play was known to the publishers as the William Shake- 
speare to whom the authorship of the book was credited 
by Pavier or if the writers of the play directed Pavier to 
credit it to Shaksper, then his silence would be excusable; 
or he could be excused on the following ground — his 
name was Shaksper and not Shakespeare or Shake-speare, 
and no book was printed in the name of William Shaksper 
— the name which was his true name. 

Again, in the year 1605, Nathaniel Butter printed a 
curious old play called the "London Prodigal" as a com- 



LofC. 



100 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

position of William Shakespeare, when in truth and in 
fact Shaksper had nothing to do with its composition, 
and yet Shaksper suffered this falsehood to pass current 
with the reading public and quietly absorbed the honor 
which the play gave to his name. 

Shortly after, in the year 1607, the play of The Puritan, 
or The Widow of Watling Street, appeared as composed 
by W. S., and in 1608 the play of A Yorkshire Tragedy 
was printed with the name of William Shakespeare as the 
author affixed to it. Yet although he wrote neither of 
these plays, he suffered them to pass current under his 
name. I think that the fair and proper deduction to 
make from these facts is that Shaksper, by reason of his 
illiteracy, knew nothing of what Phillips calls the knavery 
of these publishers. Nevertheless, Phillips himself admits 
that Shaksper was guilty of a fraud and deception in the 
latter part of the year 1599. On page 178 of the first 
volume of his "Outlines" he says, " Towards the close of 
this year, 1599, a renewed attempt was made by the poet 
to obtain a grant of coat-armour to his father. It was 
now proposed to impale the arms of Shakespeare with 
those of Arden, and on each occasion ridiculous state- 
ments were made respecting the claims of the two families. 
Both were really descended from obscure English country 
yeomen, but the heralds made out that the predecessors 
of John Shakespeare were rewarded by the Crown for 
distinguished services, and that his wife's ancestors were 
entitled to armorial bearings." 

A man who would be guilty of such deception would 
not hesitate to impliedly claim by his silence the author- 
ship of plays which he never wrote, and which he really 
did not have the ability to write. 



INDIFFERENCE TO LITERARY PROPRIETIES. 101 

The reader, of course, understands that Phillips was a 
believer in the ability of Shaksper to write the plays. 

Let us briefly consider the excuse of indifference sug- 
gested by Phillips, Collier, and the other advocates for 
Shaksper, as applied to living writers of our day and 
generation. I say living writers, because in the case of 
dead poets, such for instance as Edgar Allen Poe, the 
public might be deceived by the publication after his 
death of a poem composed by a competent writer in 
imitation of his style, and falsely attributed to Poe. Such 
a poem, cleverly executed, might pass current as his 
for all time, because his voice could not be raised nor his 
words written to warn the public in contradiction of the 
imposition. 

But if a poem should now be published by any respect- 
able publishing house in the United States or Great Brit- 
ain, purporting on the face of the publication to be the 
work of Rudyard Kipling, or if a novel should be issued 
in the name of Lewis Wallace, when in fact Kipling did 
not write the poem nor Wallace the novel, the distin- 
guished writers whose names were thus fraudulently used 
would hasten to expose the deceit attempted to be prac- 
ticed upon the literary world by the most public and 
emphatic denials of the authorship. This they would do 
whether the contents of the book or books, falsely attrib- 
uted to them, were good or bad, interesting or stupid, 
or whether the surnames as printed in the book were 
altered a little from their own, as in the case of the plays 
and poems cited in this chapter which were issued from 
the London press in Shaksper's time in a name somewhat 
like that of Shaksper. 



CHAPTER X. 

spenser's "pleasant willy" was not shaksper. 

"// imputation and strong circumstances, 
Which lead directly to the door of truth, 
Will give you satisfaction, you may have it." 

—Othello, iii, 3. 

False statements about Shaksper, after frequent repe- 
tition, pass current as truths with those who are not care- 
ful students, and this is particularly the case with the 
Shaksper worshipers as to Spenser's allusion to " Pleasant 
Willy." The passage referred to is from Spenser's " Tears 
of the Muses," printed in 1591, and reads as follows: 

" And he the man, whom Nature's self has made 
To mock herself, and truth to imitate, 
With kindly counter under mimic shade, 
Our pleasant Willy, oh ! is dead of late ; 
With whom all joy and jolly merriment 
Is also deaded, and in dolor drent." 

The best scholars among those who have never ques- 
tioned Shaksper's authorship of the plays now admit that 
these lines have no reference whatever to William Shak- 
sper. The notion that Spenser had Shaksper in mind 
would not merit consideration at all were it not for the 
fact that Knight and Collier started the unwarrantable 
suggestion. I am reminded here of A. Conan Doyle's 
warning to readers as to the difficulty experienced in 
detaching the framework of fact — of absolute, undeniable 
fact — from the embellishment and romance of theorists and 
essayists. In what I am now about to quote from Collier, 



" PLEASANT WILLY" WAS NOT SHAKSPER. 10^ 

the reader will notice how this writer first assumes a mere 
hypothesis to be a fact and then adroitly attempts to 
bolster up his guess by the statement that although 
Shaksper's surname is not given, there can be no hesita- 
tion in applying the allusion to him. Collier, in the 
beginning of his Chapter 7 of his "Life of Shaksper," says: 
" We come now to the earliest known allusion to Shak- 
sper as a dramatist; and although his surname is not given, 
we apprehend that there can be no hesitation in applying 
what is said to him. It is contained in Spenser's ' Tears 
of the Muses/ a poem printed in 1591. The application 
of the passage to Shaksper has been much contested, but 
the difficulty in our minds is how the lines are to be ex- 
plained by reference to any other dramatist of the time, 
even supposing as we have supposed and believe, that 
our great poet was at thisjperiod only rising into notice 
as a writer for the stage. We will first quote the lines 
literatim as they stand in the edition of 1591 and after- 
wards say something of the claims of others to the dis- 
tinction they confer. 

'And he the man, whom Nature's self had made 
To mock herself, and truth to imitate, 
With kindly counter under mimic shade, 
Our pleasant Willy, oh ! is dead of late ; 
With whom all joy and jolly merriment 
Is also deaded, and in dolour drent. 

'Instead thereof, scoffing scurrilitic, 
And scornful follie with contempt is crept, 
Rolling in rymes of shameless ribaudrie, 
Without regard or due decorum kept; 
Each idle wit at will presumes to make 
And doth the learned's taske upon him take. 



104 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

'But that same gentle spirit from whose pen 
Large streams of honnie and sweete nectar flowe, 
Scorning the boldness of such base born men 
Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe, 
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell 
Than so himself to mockerie to sell.' 

"The most striking of these lines with reference to our 
present inquiry is, 'Our pleasant Willy, oh! is dead of 
late,' and hence if it stood alone, we might infer that 
Willy, whoever he might be, was actually dead; but the 
latter part of the third stanza we have quoted shows us 
in what sense the word ' dead ' is to be understood : Willy 
was dead as far as regarded the admirable dramatic 
talents he had already displayed which had enabled him 
even before 1591 to outstrip all living rivalry and to 
afford the most certain indications of the still greater 
things Spenser saw he would accomplish. He was dead 
because he ' Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell, Than so 
himself to mockerie to sell.' It is to be borne in mind 
that these stanzas and six others are put into the mouth 
of Thalia, whose lamentation on the degeneracy of the 
stage, especially in comedy, follows those of Calliope and 
Melpomene. Rowe, under the impression that the whole 
passage referred to Shakespeare, introduced it into his 
'Life' in his first edition of 1709, but silently withdrew 
it in his second edition of 1714; his reason perhaps was 
that he did not see how before 1591 Shaksper could have 
shown that he merited the character given of him and 
his productions." 

Collier was in the habit (following Malone's example) 
of conjecturing as to Shaksper's acts and occupation. 
Thus in Chapter 4 of his padded biography of Shaksper 



'pleasant willy" was not shaksper. 105 

he says, "We decidedly concur with Malone in thinking 
that after Shaksper quitted the free school, he was em- 
ployed in the office of an attorney." This conjecture, 
which does not even have the benefit of tradition for 
a foundation, gave the cue to Walters, who does not 
hesitate to treat Collier's guess as a biographical fact. 
So in his attempt (unwarranted by the facts) to identify 
Shaksper as " pleasant Willy," he indulges in a wild con- 
jecture that Shaksper manufactured great works which 
have not come down to us. In Chapter 7, referring to 
this "pleasant Willy" designation, he says: 

"Although we feel assured that he had not composed 
any of his greatest works before 1591, he may have done 
much, besides what has come down to us, amply to war- 
rant Spenser in applauding him beyond all his theatrical 
contemporaries." 

Not being sure that the foregoing guess would pass 
muster, he indulges in another, as follows: "There is 
some little ground for thinking that Spenser, if not a 
Warwickshire man, was at one time a resident in War- 
wickshire, and later in life he may have become acquainted 
with Shakespeare." 

Spenser clearly had reference to Sir Philip Sidney, who 
was known among his associates as "Willy." The reader 
will find this fact distinctly stated in Morley's English 
Men of Letters, in the volume on Spenser by Dean Church 
as cited by Appleton Morgan in his "Shakespeare Myth" on 
page 148. In an eclogue on Sidney's death printed in 
Davison's "Poetical Rhapsodies" in 1602, Sir Philip Sidney 
is lamented in almost every stanza by the name of "Willy." 
Sidney died in the year 1586, and the reference in the 
poem is to a person lately deceased. 



106 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The late Richard Grant White, who was a zealous 
anti-Baconian, promptly and justly repudiates the Knight 
and Collier statement. In his "Memoirs of Shakespeare" 
he says: "In Spenser's Tears of the Muses, printed in 
1591, the following passage occurs, 

' And he the man, whom Nature's self had made 
To mock herself, and truth to imitate, 
With kindly counter under mimic shade, 
Our pleasant Willy, oh! is dead of late; 
With whom all joy and jolly merriment 
Is also deaded, and in dolor drent.' 

"This passage has been held to refer to Shakespeare, 
chiefly, it would seem, because of the name 'Willy.' But 
that, like Shepherd, was not uncommonly used, merely 
to name a poet, and was distinctly applied to Sir Philip 
Sidney in an eclogue preserved by Davison's Poetical 
Rhapsodies, published in 1602. And the Tears of the 
Muses had certainly been written before 1590, when 
Shakespeare could not have risen to the position assigned 
by the first poet of the age to the subject of this passage, and 
probably in 1580 when Shakspere was a boy of sixteen." 

The Shaksperites try also to make the public believe 
that Spenser refers to Shaksper in the following lines 
written in 1591 and found in Colin Clout's Come Home 
Again : 

" And there though last not least is Aetion, 
A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found, 
Whose muse, full of high thought's invention, 
Doth — like himself — heroically sound." 

The best answer to this guess of the commentators is 
that of Morgan, who says: "It is difficult to imagine how 



"pleasant willy" was not shaksper. 107 

this can possibly be more than mere speculation, since 
Spenser certainly left no annotation explanatory of the 
passage, and it does not identify itself as a reference to 
Shakespeare," vide "Shakespearean Myth," p. 147, note. 
Since the ancient Aetion was a physician, the verse might 
refer to Thomas Lodge, the well-known poet, or it would 
appropriately refer to Michael Drayton, whose muse was 
full of "high thought's invention"; whose name, that of 
the archangel, like his muse, did sound heroically and 
who was known among all his contemporaries as the 
gentle Shepherd Rowland. 

Robert Tofte, translator of Ariosto's Satires, speaks of 
Drayton as "not unworthily bearing the name of the 
chief archangel (Michael) singing after his soul-ravishing 
"manner." Asearlyas 1593 Drayton had published "Idea," 
the "Shepherd's Garland," fashioned in nine eclogues, and 
"Rowland's Sacrifice to the Muses." 

It is because no men of his time corresponded with 
Shaksper that there has been a straining on the part of 
the Shaksper advocates to fit contemporary verses to 
their idol. 

An analysis of Collier's argument will plainly reveal 
its utter absurdity and ridiculousness. 

He starts out by averring that the earliest known 
allusion to Shaksper as a dramatist is contained in Spen- 
ser's "Tears of the Muses." In the very next sentence he 
admits that Shaksper's surname is not mentioned at all. 
He then declares that there can be no hesitation in apply- 
ing what Spenser wrote to Shaksper, while in the very 
next sentence he admits not only that there has been 
hesitation but also that the application of the passage to 
Shaksper has been very much contested. A little farther 



108 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

on, he declares that he supposes and believes that Shaksper 
was before 1591 only rising into notice as a writer for the 
stage, and then in order to fit Shaksper to the Willy of 
the poet, as one not actually dead but sleeping or quiescent 
in idle cell, and rejecting his belief just before expressed, 
he avers that Willy was only dead as far as regarded the 
admirable dramatic talents he had already displayed — 
"talents which had enabled him even before 1591 to 
outstrip all living rivalry." Summarized, the advocate 
says that Shaksper is known to have been alluded to, 
then that Shaksper is not named and therefore not known 
as the person alluded to. No one, he avers, hesitates to 
apply the passage to Shaksper. In the very next line he 
declares that very many deny its application to Shaksper. 
The advocate believes that when Spenser wrote the poem, 
Shaksper was only rising into notice as a writer for the 
stage. He also believes that Shaksper's talents, when 
Spenser wrote the poem, were so great that he outstripped 
all other dramatists and poets. In one sentence he makes 
an assertion. In the next he denies what he asserted, 
and this he does three times in succession. 

The only mischief caused by such partisan reckless- 
ness is that when the biographer of the much-lauded 
Shaksper comes along who has no time or inclination to 
examine into the facts, he accepts the conjectures and 
assertions of such writers as Collier as facts, and palms 
them off as facts on the unsuspecting public. 



CHAPTER XI. 

daniel's letter to egerton does not 
refer to shaksper. 

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles." 

—The Winter's Tale, iv, 3. 

Collier, in the first volume of his book entitled " Shake- 
speare's Complete Works," at page 70, undertakes to prove, 
first, that Shaksper is referred to in a letter from the 
poet and dramatist, Samuel Daniel, to Sir Thomas Egerton, 
the original of which is preserved at Bridgewater House, 
and, secondly, that the letter shows that Shaksper en- 
deavored to procure, in 1603, the office of Master of the 
Queen's Revels. Collier goes so far as to say that one 
paragraph in it refers expressly to Shaksper, though not 
by name. Verplanck, in his edition of the plays, hesitates 
to follow and endorse Collier in his broad statement and 
candidly admits that the letter might be so construed as 
to apply to Michael Drayton. If now the letter or any 
paragraph of it refers expressly to William Shaksper, as 
Collier and the Shaksperites assert, then there is an end 
of controversy, for Daniel was a just and truthful man, 
and if the letter speaks of Shaksper as " the author of plays 
now daily presented on the public stages of London," 
the argument for Shaksper's ability to compose and write 
poems and plays is unanswerable. I will insert the letter 
here in its entirety, and I am confident that after a care- 
ful perusal of it, the unprejudiced reader will agree with 
me, first, that there is no reference whatever in the letter 



110 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

to Shaksper or to any one else except Michael Drayton, 
and secondly, that at the very time when Daniel wrote 
the letter, Drayton was the author of the plays referred 
to in the letter as presented daily on the public stages of 
London, and also that he, Drayton, was then an actor 
in the King's Company of comedians and an applicant 
also for the position of Master of the Queen's Revels. 
Daniel's letter, which I give in full, reads as follows: 

"To the right honorable 

Sir Thomas Egerton, Knight, 

Lord-Keeper of the Great Seale of England. 

"I will not indeavour, Right honorable, to thanke you 
in words for this new great and unlookt for favor shown 
unto me, where by I am bound to you forever, and hope 
one day with true heart and simple skill to prove that I 
am not unmindful. Most earnestly do I wish I could 
praise as your Honor has known to deserve, for then 
should I, like my master Spenser, whose memory your 
Honor cherisheth, leave behind me some worthy work to 
be treasured by posterity. What my poor muse could 
perform in haste is here set down, and though it be far 
below what other poets and better pens have written, it 
cometh from a grateful heart and therefore may be 
accepted. I shall now be able to live free from those 
cares and troubles that hitherto have been my con- 
tinual and wearisome companions. 

"But a little time is past since I was called upon to 
thank your honor for my brother's advancement, and now 
I thank you for my own; which double kindness will 
always receive double gratefulness at both our hands. 
I can not but know that I am less deserving than some 



DANIEL S LETTER TO EGERTON. Ill 

that sued by other of the nobility unto her Majesty for 
this boon; if Mr. Drayton, my good friend had been 
chosen, I should not have murmured, for sure I am that 
he would have filled it most excellently; but it seemeth 
to mine humble judgment that one who is the author of 
plays now daily presented on the public stages of London, 
and the possessor of no small gains, and moreover him- 
self an actor in the King's company of Comedians, could 
not with reason pretend to be Mr. of the Queenes Ma'ties 
revels, for as much as he would sometimes be asked to 
approve and allow of his own writings. Therefore he and 
more of like quality can not be justly disappointed because 
through your honor's gracious interposition, the chance 
was haply mine. 

"I owe this and all else to your honor, and if ever I 
have time and ability to finish any noble undertaking, 
as God grant one day I shall, the work will rather be 
your honor's than mine. God maketh a poet, but his 
creation would be in vain, if patrons did not make him 
to live. Your Honor hath ever shown yourself the friend 
of desert, and pity it were if this should be the first excep- 
tion to the rule. It shall not be while my poor wit and 
strength do remain to me, though the verses which I now 
send, be indeed no proof of mine ability. I only intreat 
your Honor to accept the same, the rather as an earnest 
of good will than as an example of my good deed. In 
all things I am your Honor's most bounden in duty and 
observance. Samuel Daniel." 

As I interpret the letter, Daniel intimates that others 
had applied for the place of Master of the Revels through 
advocates of the nobility class; and that if his friend 



112 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Michael Drayton had been chosen, he, Daniel, would not 
have murmured because he, Drayton, would have filled 
the position most excellently; but yet it seemed to him, 
Daniel, that one who was the author of plays then daily 
exhibited on the stage ought not to be a judge when his 
own plays had to be approved or rejected, since he might 
be biased, and besides his good friend Drayton was an 
actor in the King's company of comedians. 

The letter clearly refers to Drayton and not to Shaksper. 

Was Drayton the author of plays then daily acted on 
the London stage? Let him answer for himself. I quote 
from Drayton's "Idea," Sonnet 47: 

" In pride of wit, when high desire of fame 
Gave life and courage to my labouring pen, 
And first the sound and virtue of my name 
Won grace and credit in the ears of men; 
With those the thronged theatres that press, 
I in the circuit for the laurel strove ; 
Where the full praise, I freely must confess, 
In heat of blood a modest mind might move, 
With shouts and claps at every little pause 
When the proud round on every side hath rung, 
Sadly I sit unmoved with the applause, 
As though to me it nothing did belong: 
No public glory vainly I pursue, 
All that I seek is to eternize you." 

As confirmatory of Drayton's ability as a poet and writer 
of plays, I quote here from Richard Barnfield's "Remem- 
brances of some English Poets," published in 1598: 

" And Drayton, whose well-written tragedies 
And sweet epistles soar thy fame to skies, 
Thy learned name is equal with the rest 
Whose stately numbers are so well addresst." 



DANIEL S LETTER TO EGERTON. 113 

In this poem, Barnfield puts Drayton in his eulogy 
next to Spenser. Here is a distinct reference to tragedies 
written by Michael Drayton, which had made him famous; 
and in confirmation thereof, Henslowe's Diary shows con- 
clusively that he had written plays for the theatre before 
1598. Who now of the nobility would have recommended 
Drayton? 

The earliest helper of Drayton to an education was 
Sir Henry Goodere of Polesworth. He was a staunch 
friend of Drayton all his life. In his poetical epistle to 
Henry Reynolds, Drayton says that he had been a page 
attached to the household of Sir Henry, and in another 
dedicatory address he acknowledged his indebtedness to 
him for his education. Sir Walter Aston was also an 
earnest patron and energetic helper of Drayton. In 
1603, Drayton was made an Esquire by Sir Walter at 
his investiture as a Knight of the Bath. Lucy, Countess 
of Bedford, Sir John Harrington, Drummond, and Sir 
William Alexander were admirers and devoted friends. 
On page 181 of Drummond's "Life," it appears that on 
July 14, 1631, Drayton wrote to Drummond that he visited 
a knight's house in Gloucestershire yearly for two or three 
months. As the letter was addressed from Clifford in 
Gloucestershire, it was probably there that he made these 
annual visits. There is a tradition that Drayton was 
employed by Queen Elizabeth on a diplomatic mission to 
Scotland. In an obscure passage in the Owl, 1604, he 
states that he went in preferment "unto the happy North; 
and there arrived, disgrace was all my gain." 

If search were made for those applications for the 
position referred to by Daniel, and if they could be un- 
earthed, I think that it would be found that no such 



114 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

person as William Shaksper ever applied for the position 
of Master of the Queen's Revels. 

Let us suppose that in aid of the truth some person 
having the leisure and the means to do so should under- 
take to find the list of names of the playwriters to whom 
Daniel refers in his letter to the Lord-Keeper, and the 
names also of those of the nobility who sued to her majesty 
for this boon. What a contribution that would be to the 
cause of truth and in settlement of the question of the 
ability of Shaksper to write a play or to write at all ! Who, 
besides Daniel, were the several applicants for the post 
of Master of the Queen's Revels, and what did they urge 
in behalf of their respective claims? What did these 
noblemen, to whom Daniel refers, write about the appli- 
cants to her majesty? If the record or the papers, or 
either of them, could be found, and published exactly as 
they appear, it would go far to bring the truth to light. 

I might suggest the same as to William Shaksper's 
estate. It should have been settled according to the 
laws of England, and an inventory of his goods and chattels 
and of all his personal estate should be preserved in the 
proper probate archives, or an official record thereof 
should have been kept. If that could be found, it would 
be a welcome addition to the meagre life-history of the 
man. If he had died the owner of books and manu- 
scripts prepared by him, it would have conclusively 
settled the question of Shaksper's ability to write plays. 

Before passing from the consideration of the letter of 
thanks from Daniel to Lord-Keeper Egerton I must ask 
the reader, whether a believer in the Shaksper claim or 
not, to analyze it carefully for the purpose of determining 
whether I am right or wrong in my construction of it. 



daniel's letter to egerton. 115 

I repeat that I interpret it thus — that Daniel, the writer 
of the letter, concedes that if his good friend, Drayton, 
had been chosen as Master of the Queen's Revels, he, 
Drayton, would have graced the position; but that as he, 
Drayton, was the author of plays then daily presented 
on the stage, he would not be a competent and impartial 
judge as to his own productions. The special reference 
is to Michael Drayton. And then Daniel alludes in a 
general way to other applicants for the position. 

While Collier is mistaken in attributing Daniel's refer- 
ence to the authorship of plays now daily presented on 
the public stages of London to Shaksper, he has enabled 
me to again direct the attention, especially of the English 
reader of the letter, to the opportunity afforded, and which 
may exist, of finding some clue to the names of those 
besides Drayton who did apply to Egerton for the posi- 
tion which Daniel thanked him for so heartily. 

The reader, of course, will understand that the poem 
to which Daniel alludes in his letter to the Lord-Keeper 
had no reference whatever to the applications or the ap- 
plicants for the place which Daniel secured. It was 
merely a complimentary effusion in praise of Daniel's 
benefactor. 



CHAPTKR XII. 

8HAKSPEB not THE SHAKESCBNE OF ROBERT QREENB. 

" He irill give the devil his due." 

—First Henry IV, \,--- 

1 approach the discussion of the proposition which 
heads tins chapter with the hope that the unprejudiced 
reader will carefully and dispassionately consider the 
statements of fact made and the arguments adduced with 
the view solely o( eliciting the truth. I will try to show, 
if 1 can, the falsity o( the dictum of Malone, implicitly 
followed, without examination, by the whole army of 
commentators except Fleay. that one of the persons 
chiefly referred to in Greene's pamphlet and Chot tie's 
apology was William Shaksper of St rat ford-on- Avon. In 
order to he fair and candid and to give the reader an 
opportunity to use his own full and free judgment, I will 
first state the precedent uncontradicted facts and then 
set out the text on which Malone's guess is based. 

Robert Greene, a dissolute but gifted poet and drama- 
tist of England, died in great poverty ami distress both 
of mind and body on the third day oi September, L592. 
Shortly before his death he wrote a book, or rather a 
pamphlet, called " Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit, bought 
with a Million of Repentance." It was originally published 
in L592, having been entered at Stationer's Hall on the 
20th day of September, 1592, but the earliest edition 
known was printed in 1596. This little work contains 
a reference to two persons, whose names are not mentioned, 



SHAK0PEB NOT BHAKE8CE ]]7 

but because and only because the word "Shake-scene" is 
used therein, it, has been taken for granted by Malone 
and the commentators who have followed him that Wil- 
liam Shaksper was referred to. 

I will reproduce here Collier's version of the reference, 
so that I can not, be accused of garbling the text. All 
students of Shakespeare criticism know that Collier v. 
pertinacious and sometimes unreasonable asserter of the 
Shaksper claim. In examining and considering the quota- 
tion, the reader must strike out the words in parenthesis, 
because they are not in the original text but, are deluding 
interpolations of the partisan Collier. I give Collier's 
exact words: 

"During the prevalence of the infectious malady of 
1592, although not in consequence of it, died one of the 
most notorious and distinguished of the literary men of 
the time,— Robert Greene. He expired on the 3rd of 
September, 1592, and left behind him a work purporting 
to have been written during his last illness: it was pub- 
lished a few months afterwards by Henry Chettle, a 
fellow dramatist, under the title of 'A Groat's-worth of 
Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance/ bearing the 
date of 1592, and preceded by an address from Greene 
'To those Gentlemen, his quondam acquaintance, who 
spend their wits in making Plays.'' Here we meet with 
the second notice of Shakespeare, not indeed by name-, 
but with such a near approach to it, that nobody can 
entertain a moment's doubt that he was intended. It is 
necessary to quote the whole passage, and to observe, 
before we do so, that Greene is addressing himself par- 
ticularly to Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele, and urging then. 
to break off all connection with players :— ' Base minded 



118 m THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

men all three of you, if by my misery ye be not warned; 
for unto none of you, like me, sought those burs to cleave; 
those puppets, I mean, that speak from our mouths, those 
anticks garnished in our colours. Is it not strange that 
I, to whom they all have been beholding; is it not like 
that you, to whom they have all been beholding, shall 
(were ye in that case that I am now) be both of them at 
once forsaken? Yes, trust them not; for there is an 
upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his 
Tiger's heart torapp'd in a player's hide, supposes he is as 
well able to bombast out blank- verse, as the best of you: 
and, being an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, is, in his own 
conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country. 0! that I 
might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more 
profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past 
excellence, and never more acquaint them with your 
admired inventions.' 

"The chief and obvious purpose of this address is to 
induce Marlowe, Lodge, and Peele to cease to write for 
the stage; and, in the course of his exhortation, Greene 
bitterly inveighs against 'an upstart crow,' who had 
availed himself of the dramatic labours of others, who 
imagined himself able to write as good blank-verse as any 
of his contemporaries, who was a Johannes Fac-totum, and 
who, in his own opinion, was 'the only Shake-scene in a 
country.' All this is clearly leveled at Shakespeare, 
under the purposely-perverted name of Shake-scene, and 
the words, 'Tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide,' are 
a parody upon a line in a historical play (most likely 
by Greene), '0, tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's 
hide,' from which Shakespeare had taken his Henry VI, 
part iii. 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 119 

"From hence it is evident that Shakespeare, near the 
end of 1592, had established such a reputation, and was 
so important a rival of the dramatists, who, until he 
came forward, had kept undisputed possession of the 
stage, as to excite the envy and enmity of Greene, even 
during his last and fatal illness. It also, we think, estab- 
lishes another point not hitherto adverted to, viz: that 
our great poet possessed such variety of talent, that, for 
the purposes of the company of which he was a member, 
he could do anything that he might be called upon to 
perform: he was the Johannes Fac-totum of the associa- 
tion: he was an actor, and he was a writer of original 
plays, an adapter and improver of those already in exist- 
ence (some of them by Greene, Marlowe, Lodge, and 
Peele), and no doubt he contributed prologues or epi- 
logues, and inserted scenes, speeches, or passages on any 
temporary emergency. Having his ready assistance, the 
Lord Chamberlain's servants required few other contri- 
butions from rival dramatists: Shakespeare was the 
Johannes Fac-totum who could turn his hand to anything 
connected with his profession, and who, in all probability, 
had thrown men like Greene, Lodge, and Peele, and even 
Marlowe himself, into the shade. In our view, therefore, 
the quotation we have made from the ' Groat's-worth of 
Wit' proves more than has usually been collected from it. 

"It was natural and proper that Shakespeare should 
take offense at this gross and public attack: that he did, 
there is no doubt, for we are told so by Chettle himself, 
the avowed editor of the ' Groat's-worth of Wit ' : he does 
not indeed mention Shakespeare, but he designates him so 
intelligibly that there is no room for dispute. Marlowe, 
also, and not without reason, complained of the manner 



120 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

in which Greene had spoken of him in the same work, 
but to him Chettle made no apology, while to Shake- 
speare he offered all the amends in his power. 

"His apology to Shakespeare is contained in a tract 
called 'Kind-heart's Dream,' which was published without 
date, but as Greene expired on 3d September, 1592, and 
Chettle tells us in 'Kind-heart's Dream,' that Greene died 
'about three months' before, it is certain that 'Kind- 
heart's Dream' came out prior to the end of 1592, as we 
now calculate the year, and about three months before 
it expired, according to the reckoning of that period. 
The whole passage relating to Marlowe and Shakespeare 
is highly interesting, and we therefore extract it entire: 

'"About three months since died M. Robert Greene, 
leaving many papers in sundry booksellers' hands: among 
others his Groat's-worth of Wit, in which a letter, written 
to divers play-makers, is offensively by one or two of 
them taken; and because on the dead they can not be 
avenged, they wilfully forge in their conceits a living 
author, and after tossing it to and fro, no remedy but it 
must light on me. How I have, all the time of my con- 
versing in printing, hindered the bitter inveighing against 
scholars, it hath been very well known: and how in that I 
dealt, I can sufficiently prove. With neither of them, 
that take offense, was I acquainted ; and with one of them 
(Marlowe) I care not if I never be: the other (Shake- 
speare), whom at that time I did not so much spare, as 
since I wish I had, for that as I have moderated the heat 
of living writers, and might have used my own discretion 
(especially in such a case, the author being dead) that I 
did not I am as sorry as if the original fault had been my 
fault; because myself have seen his demeanour no less 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 121 

<;ivil, than he excellent in the quality he professes, besides, 
divers of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, 
which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writ- 
ing, that approves his art. For the first (Marlowe), 
whose learning I reverence, and at the perusing of Greene's 
book struck out what then in conscience I thought he in 
some displeasure writ, or had it been true, yet to publish 
it was intolerable, him I would wish to use me no worse 
than I deserve.' 

"The accusation of Greene against Marlowe had refer- 
ence to the freedom of his religious opinions, of which it 
is not necessary here to say more : the attack upon Shake- 
speare we have already inserted and observed upon. In 
Chettle's apology to the latter, one of the most noticeable 
points is the tribute he pays to our great dramatist's abili- 
ties as an actor, ' his demeanour no less civil, than he excel- 
lent in the quality he professes'; the word 'quality' was 
applied, at that date, peculiarly and technically to acting, 
and the 'quality' Shakespeare professed was that of an 
actor. 'His facetious grace in writing' is separately 
adverted to, and admitted, while ' his uprightness of deal- 
ing' is attested, not only by Chettle's own experience, 
but by the evidence of 'divers of worship.' Thus the 
amends, made to Shakespeare for the envious assault of 
Greene, shows most decisively the high opinion enter- 
tained of him, towards the close of 1592, as an actor, an 
author, and a man." 

The reader must not forget that Collier has padded his quo- 
tations with proper names which were not in the original. 

There are three great questions, and three only, to be 
considered here, as the reader will perceive after a careful 
reading of the foregoing extract : 



122 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

First — Are Marlowe, Peele, and Lodge the three per- 
sons to whom Greene's warning is addressed? 

Second — To whom of the two persons denounced does 
the word " Shake-scene " refer? 

Third — Who were the two persons against whom the 
warning was directed? 

Let it be accepted that the warning of Greene was 
directed, as Malone and his followers all suggest and believe, 
and as all disinterested and careful readers of Greene's 
book believe, to Marlowe, Peele, and Lodge, not enemies, 
but friends of Greene; who then was the upstart crow, 
beautified with the feathers of Greene, Marlowe, Peele, 
and Lodge, with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's 
hide — the man who had assurance enough to believe that 
he could bombast out blank-verse as well as any of them, 
and who was an absolute Johannes Fac-totum, and, in his 
own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country ? It must 
have been one of the two persons thus described and 
specified by Greene, and who were they? 

I assert, without fear of successful contradiction, that 
Marlowe could not have been one of them. Greene would 
not have warned his friend, Christopher Marlowe, to 
beware of Christopher Marlowe. Such a warning would 
have been absurd and ridiculous. Can any intelligent 
reader believe that Greene, writing, as it were, a death- 
bed warning to a friend and brother poet, Marlowe, against 
two plagiarists or imitators, would stigmatize the warned 
Marlowe himself as one of them and call him an ape, a 
bur, a puppet, an upstart crow, and a Johannes Fac- 
totum? A may warn B against his friend C, or his enemy 
D; but A, while having a sound mind in a sound body, 
would never and could never warn B, his friend, against 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 123 

B himself, and load his warning with abusive epithets 
expressly directed at B. 

William Shaksper could not have been one of them, 
unless there is some proof introduced to identify Shaksper 
as Shake-scene. That expression might refer to any 
player who was also a poet. It is of itself a mere epithet. 
Malone seized upon that word as referring to William 
Shaksper, and he might as well have taken the character 
of Mr. Shakestone in Heywood and Brome's play of the 
Witches of Lancashire and asserted that William Shaksper 
was thereby meant. It was a mere guess on the part of 
Malone, and an absurd one at that. Malone and the 
commentators say that here is a notice of Shaksper, not 
indeed by name, but with such a near approach to it that 
nobody can entertain a moment's doubt that he was 
intended. So Collier boldly asserts, and so do all the 
Shaksper worshipers. To bolster this up, they say that 
he was an actor, a writer of original plays, and that no 
doubt he contributed prologues or epilogues and inserted 
scenes, speeches, or passages for any temporary emer- 
gency. And Collier says, without the slightest authority 
for the statement, that he possessed such variety of talent 
that, for the purposes of the company of which he was a 
member, he could do anything that he might be called 
upon to perform. Let those who think with Collier pro- 
duce, if they can, any prologue or epilogue, scene, speech, 
or passage which Shaksper produced on any tem- 
porary emergency. When and where did he act as 
a Johannes Factotum of any association, and if he 
did, of what association? When and where did Shak- 
sper give evidence that he had the fierceness and cru- 
elty of a tiger? 



124 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

There is not to be found anywhere the slightest scrap 
of evidence showing that William Shaksper was a copyist 
from any writings of Greene, Marlowe, Peele, or Lodge, 
or from the writings of any one else. There is no evidence 
that he was a plagiarist or a Jack-of-all-trades, or that 
he could write blank verse or any other kind of verse, or 
that he could write anything at all, other than his name. 
There is nothing to show that Shaksper was cruel or 
vindictive at any time before 1593 or even afterward. 

The men who were the objects of Greene's wrath may be 
sufficiently identified by Chettle's description of them; and 
students of the Elizabethan drama will find, upon exami- 
nation, that my opinion as to the two men is the correct 
view. One of them was either Thomas Dekker or Anthony 
Monday. Thomas Dekker would only partly suit the 
description given by Greene, and I am strongly of opinion 
that Anthony Monday was the offender. Thomas Dekker 
was a Johannes Factotum or, as we commonly put it, 
"a Jack-of-all-trades." He was, or had been, a draper. 
He was a player and a playwriter, and he was especially 
used by Henslowe, who was the tyrant over playwriters 
and players, as a dresser of plays. He supplied pro- 
logues and epilogues at the dictation of Henslowe. I am 
inclined to the opinion, from the perusal of plays of which 
he was the sole author, as well as his prose writings, that 
he had acquired a knowledge of law, for he was fond of 
using law terms, and he used them accurately. Read, 
for example, his description of term time in the lower 
regions : 

"Here, they stand upon no demurrers. No Audita 
querela can here be gotten, no writs of error to reverse 
judgment. Here is no applying to a court of chancery 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 125 

for relief, yet every one that comes hither is served with a 
subpoena. No, they deal altogether in this court upon 
the habeas corpus, upon the capias, upon the ne exeat 
regnum, upon rebellion, upon heavy fines, (but no recov- 
eries) upon writs of outlawry to attach the body forever, 
and last of all upon execution after judgment, which 
being served upon a man is his everlasting undoing." 

In the Gulls' Horn-Book, he says, " If they choose to 
discourse, it is of nothing but statutes, bonds, recogni- 
zances, fines, recoveries, audits, rents, subsidies, sureties, 
enclosures, liveries, indictments, outlawries, feoffments, 
judgments, commissions, bankrupts, amendments." 

Dekker availed himself of every tale, story, or incident 
that he could quickly weave into a play; and Henslowe's 
Diary shows that whenever any patching of a play had to 
be done, no matter who wrote it, Dekker's services were 
called into requisition for that purpose. He wrote addi- 
tions to Faustus. He wrote a prologue for Tamerlaine. 
He revised and added to Jeronimo, and, as will be here- 
after shown, he was the author in part and in whole of 
more than forty plays. All that Collier merely guesses 
as to Shaksper applies truthfully to Dekker except as to 
the tiger's heart. He was the man whom Ben Jonson 
satirized as a poet ape, and as a plagiarist and dresser of 
plays. 

As early as 1789, Dr. Farmer, who wrote an essay on 
the learning of Shakespeare, says, on page 75: "Shake- 
speare most certainly went to London, and commenced 
Actor thro' necessity, not natural inclination. Nor have 
we any reason to suppose that he did act exceedingly 
well. Rowe tells us, from the information of Betterton,, 
who was inquisitive into this point, and had very early 



126 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

opportunities of inquiry from Sir W. Davenant, that he 
was no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his per- 
formance was the Ghost in his own Hamlet." 

Here are Rowe's exact words copied from Collier's 
note to Chapter 6 of his "Life of Shaksper": "His name 
is printed, as the custom was in those times, amongst 
those of the other players before some old plays, but 
without any particular account of what sort of parts he 
used to play; and though I have inquired, I could never 
meet with any further account of him this way than that 
the top of his performance was the Ghost in his own 
Hamlet." A man could not be a very extraordinary 
actor who only took the part of the Ghost in the play of 
Hamlet, or, as Collier hints, that of old Adam in "As 
You Like It." 

Shaksper nowhere appears in any contemporary writing, 
or in any diary of the time, as filling the part of a Johannes 
Factotum, while Dekker does. 

In Chettle's attempt at exculpation and apology, he 
asserts that what was published was written by Greene 
and that he, Chettle, merely copied it for license and 
printing purposes, because it was badly written, and he 
states apologetically that he left a part out but added 
nothing. He further adds that he was not acquainted 
with the two writers who took offense, and with one of 
them he did not care to be (evidently referring to the man 
with the tiger's heart). As to the other, he might have 
used more discretion as to him, since Greene was dead 
and especially because he had noticed the civil demeanor 
and excellent qualities of the writer, and besides divers 
of worship (by whom he means men of rank or noblemen) 
have reported his uprightness of dealing and his facetious 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 127 

grace in writing. As for the first one mentioned, he, 
Chettle, reverenced his learning, and, when he read Greene's 
book, struck out what he thought Greene had in some 
displeasure written. 

Anthony Monday, instead of Thomas Dekker, I feel 
quite sure was the man "with the tiger's heart," to whom 
Greene alluded. If I had lived in that era and had had 
knowledge of him, I would have deemed the appellation 
of "the tiger's heart" as a very appropriate one for him. 
A short sketch of his life will show these things 
— first, that he was a player, secondly, that he was 
a Johannes Factotum, and thirdly, that he had a tiger's 
heart. 

Monday was born in 1553 and died in 1633. He was 
intended for a stationer, and was apprenticed to John 
Aldee to learn that trade. He left his employer and 
became an actor, probably a strolling player. He also 
wrote plays. He went to Rome, intending or pretending 
that he would study for the priesthood, but returned to 
England, and in 1581 he appeared as a witness against 
Campion and others who were tried under the laws against 
Papists. If he had stopped there and had merely given 
testimony, his conduct might have been excusable, but 
he carried his hatred and bigotry so far that when Johnson, 
Richardson, and others were executed on May 30, 1582, 
upon conviction under the English religious acts, he, 
Monday, stood at the foot of the gallows and openly dis- 
puted with and loudly contradicted the poor sufferers. 
Between 1580 and 1582, he became one of the Messengers 
of her Majesty's Chamber, and he wrote pamphlets and 
books under the pseudonym of Lazarus Piot. Monday 
was undoubtedly a great and skillful writer of plays, and 



128 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

I am satisfied that he was one of the collaborators in the 
play of Julius Csesar. 

Before leaving the question of the identity of the man 
whom Greene, on his death-bed, so bitterly assailed, let 
us again briefly but carefully consider the distinguishing 
traits in the lives of the three men to whom I have called 
the reader's attention. Let us bear in mind that three 
characteristics are attributed to the man denounced by 
Greene. He was as vindictive and cruel as a tiger. He 
was a player, for his tiger's heart was wrapped in a player's 
hide, and he was a Johannes Factotum. 

Now, since the warning or admonition was in part 
addressed to Marlowe, it is absurd to say that he was 
warned against himself, and he could not have been one 
of the two men whom Greene so severely berated. But 
even if the warning had not been meant for him, Marlowe 
was never a Johannes Factotum, and while he was a 
libertine and an atheist, he was not a vindictive and 
tiger-like man. 

As to Dekker, while he was a player and a Johannes 
Factotum, he was never guilty of tigerish conduct. His 
dramatic reply to the Poetaster of Jonson was merely a 
wit combat, with nothing vindictive in it, and it took 
place long after poor Greene's death. 

But in Anthony Monday all the three characteristics 
were combined. He was a player; he was a Johannes 
Factotum; he had, as I have shown and as history shows, 
a tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide. The following 
is an account of him taken from the Biographia Dramatica, 
1782: 

"This author is celebrated by Meres amongst the 
comic poets as the best plotter; but none of his dramatic 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 129 

pieces have come down to the present time. He appears 
to have been a writer through a long period, there being 
works existing published by him which are dated in 1580 
and 1621 and probably both later and earlier than those 
years. In the year 1582 he detected the treasonable 
practices of Edward Campion and his confederates, of 
which he published an account, wherein he is styled 
'sometime the pope's scholar allowed in the seminary at 
Rome.' The publication of this pamphlet brought upon 
him the vengeance of his opponents, one of whom, in an 
answer to him, has given his history in these words: 

' 'Monday was first a stage player, after an apprentice, 
which time he well served with deceiving of his master, 
then wandering towards Italy, by his own report, became 
a cozener in his journey. Coming to Rome in his short 
abode there, was charitably received, but never admitted 
in the Seminary.'" 

Returning to England, he again became a player and 
a writer of plays. This description accurately fits Greene's 
description in two particulars; and as to the third, I take 
it that a man, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic, Angli- 
can Catholic, Greek Catholic, or Religionist of any church, 
who would stand at the foot of the gallows when men, 
doomed to death for adherence to their creed, were about 
to be launched into eternity, and hurl arguments and 
anathemas at them, was, to adopt the language of York 
to Queen Margaret, "more inhuman, more inexorable, 0, 
ten times more, than tigers cf Hyrcania." As all this 
occurred ten years before Greene's death, Monday's ante- 
cedents must have been well known to Greene. 

Now, who was this second play writer? He was a 
man of civil demeanor, with excellent qualities of head 



130 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

and heart, a man well spoken of by the nobility. There 
was but one writer of plays at that time to whom it could 
refer, and that writer was Michael Drayton, a native of 
Warwickshire. His reputation as a play writer of civil 
demeanor with excellent qualities was well established. 

Thus in 1601, in the Return from Parnassus, the famous 
Cambridge play, after eulogizing Spenser, Ingenioso reads 
the name of Michael Drayton, and Judicio says: 

" Drayton's sweet muse is like a sanguine dye 
Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye." 

And then Ingenioso says: "However he wants one true 
note of a poet of our times, and that is that he can not 
swagger it well in a tavern nor domineer in a hot house." 
This was an indirect but a very great compliment to and 
recognition of Drayton's civil demeanor. 

As to Drayton's facetious grace in writing, Henslowe's 
Diary shows that with Anthony Monday he wrote the 
following plays: "A Comedy for the Court," and a play 
called "Mother Red Cap"; and that with Monday and 
others he wrote "Caesar's Fall," "Owen Tudor," "Rich- 
ard Cceur de Leon's Funeral," "The Rising of Cardinal 
Wolsey," and "Sir John Oldcastle"; while in the same 
diary no mention whatever is made of Shaksper. Drayton 
and Dekker collaborated in the composition of many 
plays, as will be hereafter shown. As to the opinion held 
of him by noblemen, English annals show that he was 
beloved and patronized by Sir Henry Goodere, Sir Walter 
Aston, Sir Anthony Cook, the Countess of Bedford and 
others of the nobilitjr. On the other hand, there is noth- 
ing to show in any record of the times that William Shak- 
sper was either well or ill spoken of by any nobleman. 



SHAKSPER NOT SHAKESCENE. 131 

A fine eulogy of Drayton is pronounced by Meres: 
"As Virgil doth imitate Catullus in the like manner 
of Ariadne for his story of Queen Dido, so Michael Dray- 
ton doth imitate Ovid in his England's Heroical Epistles. 

"As Sophocles was called the bee for the sweetness of 
his tongue, so Drayton is termed the golden-mouthed for 
the purity and preciousness of his style and phrase. 

"As Aulus Flaccus is reported among writers to be of 
an honest life and upright conversation, so Michael Dray- 
ton {quern totius honoris causa nomino) among scholars, 
soldiers, poets, and all sorts of people, is held for a man of 
virtuous disposition, honest conversation, and well gov- 
erned carriage, which is almost miraculous among good 
wits in these declining times, when there is nothing but 
roguery in villainous man, and when cheating and crafti- 
ness is counted the clearest wit and soundest wisdom." 

The theory of the Shaksperites is that the Groat's-worth 
of Wit is addressed among others to Marlowe, and if it 
was, it is certain that their theory that he, Marlowe, 
could have been the one of the playwriters who was 
called by Greene an apish imitator, is entirely wrong. 
He could hardly have been an imitator of himself, and 
why should Marlowe be warned to beware of Marlowe? 
All this really absurd theory as to Shaksper and Marlowe 
is merely founded upon the use of the word "Shake-scene" 
in Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit. 

If now a careful examination should satisfactorily show 
to the literary world that either Monday, Dekker, or 
Drayton was the author of part or all of Third Henry the 
Sixth, in which the words, "0, tiger's heart wrapped in 
a woman's hide" occur, the mystery as to Greene's 
death-bed diatribe would be solved. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

LIES FABRICATED IN AID OF THE SHAKSPER PRETENSION. 

11 Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying." 

—First Henry IV, v, 4. 

One of the first lies coined to give some importance 
to the Shaksper claim is the very silly one that the Earl 
of Southampton gave one thousand pounds to Shaksper. 
This lie was set in motion long after Shaksper died, and 
was an invention of Davenant, who was reputed to be a 
bastard son of Shaksper. One thousand pounds in the 
time of Elizabeth were worth as much as $25,000 now are. 
A constant repetition of this lie has the effect to make 
the careless reader believe in its truth. Yet there is no 
proof whatever to support the statement. Indeed there 
is no evidence that Southampton ever knew Shaksper. 
No letter of Southampton can be found showing even an 
acquaintance with Shaksper and if the Earl had ever 
given him any money or article of value, some evidence 
of it would long ago have been produced. 

The second bold lie is the invention of Bernard Lintot, 
who got out an edition of the plays in 1710. He said 
that King James wrote Shaksper a letter with his own 
hand, and that a credible person then living (in 1710) 
who saw the letter in Davenant's possession, told him so. 
But Lintot took care not to mention the name of the 
credible person, and as Appleton Morgan well says, "had 
Davenant ever possessed such a letter, Davenant would 
have taken good care that the world should never hear 



LIES IN AID OF SHAKSPER. 133 

the last of it." It would have been set out in every 
biography of Shaksper at full length. 

Another lie invented to give a reason for the learning 
necessary to make him a playwriter is that Shaksper 
was a schoolmaster. It was absolutely necessary to give 
him some education higher than that which the few 
months at the Stratford grammar school could have 
given him, so it is broadly asserted without the slightest 
scintilla of evidence to support the assertion that he 
taught school in his native county. One Beeston told 
Aubrey that there was a rumor that Shaksper was a 
schoolmaster, and so Aubrey gave out the story of Beeston 
for what it was worth. 

Another lie has been added to the list of lies of which 
Shaksper's biography is made up, to the effect that Shak- 
sper was a clerk in a law office and a law student. This 
lie was required for the reason that in some of the plays 
legal phrases are used and a familiarity with law terms 
is occasionably noticeable. Of course, if there was any 
evidence whatever to be adduced on this point, which 
would be worthy of the least consideration, it would long 
ago have been unearthed and quickly heralded to the 
world. 

The most silly, stupid, and ridiculous guess of all the 
guesses put before the reading public to make out a plausi- 
ble claim for Shaksper as the author of the Sonnets, is 
the one set in motion by Thomas Tyler, aided by the 
Reverend W. A. Harrison. This Tyler hypothesis, stated 
succinctly, is that Shaksper had a liason with Mrs. Mary 
Fitton, one of Queen Elizabeth's maids of honor, and that 
she was the black-eyed woman alluded to in the 127th 
and 132d sonnets. For the purpose of fitting Shaksper 



134 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

in as the writer of the sonnets, the reading public is asked 
to believe that "the gentle Shaksper" seduced or was 
seduced by Mrs. Fitton, and that he, Shaksper, the seducer, 
put the whole matter in print in a very delicate way in 
the Shakespeare Sonnets, so called, for all after-genera- 
tions to read. Although Tyler and Harrison can produce 
no evidence whatever that Shaksper ever knew Mrs. 
Fitton, this horrible story is suggested by them, and his 
character is blackened and hers also in order to impress 
the credulous reader with the belief that Shaksper wrote 
sonnets which he never claimed and which, as I shall 
show in a subsequent chapter, he did not write. 

The most harmless lie of all, but one which neverthe- 
less is a lie, is the assertion generally believed that Shak- 
sper was married to Anne Hathaway, the daughter of 
Richard Hathaway of Shottery. While this lie is an 
unimportant one, yet there is no reason why it should not 
be exposed and the real facts given, as they appear of 
record. 

In the Episcopal register at Worcester, under the date 
of November 27th, 1582, appears the following minute: 
" Item eodem die similis emanant licencia inter Wilhelmum 
Shaxpere et Annam Whateley de Temple Grafton"; the 
licencia being one of matrimony, as shown by the previous 
entry. As no license was issued on the next day and as 
Shaksper was married on the 28th day of November, 
1582, upon which day the marriage bond is dated, it is 
evident that a mistake was made as to the bride's name 
either in the license or in the bond. 

But there was no child of Richard Hathaway of Shot- 
tery by the name of Anne Hathaway. The nearest 
resembling Christian name of any of his children was 



LIES IN AID OF SHAKSPER. 135 

Agnes Hathaway, and the Christian name given both in 
the license and the bond is Anne. The most reasonable 
supposition is that the maiden name of the bride was 
Anne Whateley and that she was the widow of one Hath- 
away and living at Temple Grafton at the time when she 
was married to William Shaksper. 

As Morgan well says in his " Shakespeare, in Fact and 
Criticism," "The little cottage at Shottery, so long wor- 
shiped of tourists as the courting ground of great Shake- 
speare, may have to go into the limbo of exploded myths. 
Richard Hathaway of Shottery (owner of the cottage 
whose glories now bid fair to fade) in his will, dated Sep- 
tember 1, 1581, bequeathed his property to seven children, 
among other provisions, giving six pounds thirteen shillings 
to his daughter Agnes, and as no Anne was mentioned 
(the other daughters being Catharine and Margaret) 
Agnes has invariably been supposed a clerical error for 
Anne. But Shakespeare study is fast being guided by 
modern students into the paths of common sense, and the 
convenient presumption that everything not accordant 
with the glib biographer of the greatest Englishman who 
ever lived, was a 'clerical error' is about to be pensioned 
off forever." 

But the boldest and most astounding assertion is that 
William Shaksper wrote plays for Henslowe. 

Phillips, in his "Outlines," Volume 1, page 109, gives 
currency to this huge lie by asserting the following: "Thus 
it appears that Shakespeare up to this period, 1594, had 
written all his dramas for Henslowe, and that they were 
acted under the sanction of that manager by the various 
companies performing from 1592 to 1594 at the Rose 
Theatre and Newington Butts." 



136 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Now I challenge any believer in Shaksper's ability to 
write plays to show that Shaksper is mentioned by Hens- 
lowe at all. If he had been able to write a play, he would 
have been hired by Henslowe, and the bargain and the pay 
would have been recorded. Or if he had been a dresser 
and reviser of plays, he would have been employed and 
paid for that work by Henslowe and the fact would have 
been noted. The Shaksperites, finding that Titus Andron- 
icus had been put upon the stage in that year, jump 
immediately at the conclusion that Shaksper wrote it. 
And that is the sole foundation for the false statement that 
Shaksper wrote plays for Henslowe. It is true that Col- 
lier, in editing Henslowe 's Diary, has seized the oppor- 
tunity of inserting, in notes, references to Shaksper, so 
as to get his name into the index of the book. Not find- 
ing in the Diary the slightest allusion to his idol, he inserted 
in notes what he himself believed and what he desired the 
reader to believe. 

I have paid no attention to the other silly lies invented 
to please and gratify the longings of the people, who are 
naturally anxious to read or hear something, whether 
true or false, about a person believed to be a great writer. 
Among such is the invention of the glove story. Queen 
Elizabeth, they say, dropped a glove while crossing the 
street, and the courtly Shaksper picked it up and handed 
it to her, while making at the same time a felicitous 
impromptu speech in praise of the beauty and talents 
of the Virgin Queen. And another, the silliest of all 
inventions, is the contribution of John Jordan and 
others to the catalogue of Shakespearean poetry, which 
catalogue contains among other choice selections the 
following: 



lies in aid of shaksper. 137 

David and Goliath. 

" Goliath comes with sword and spear 
And David with a sling; 
Although Goliath rage and swear, 
Down David doth him bring." 

The best commentary upon all these fabrications is 
uttered by Prince Henry in 1 Henry IV, ii, 4: " These 
lies are like the father that begets them, gross as a moun- 
tain, open, palpable." 

If the reader will ask the writers who give currency in 
their biographies of William Shaksper to the foregoing 
lies for the authority for their statements, he will find 
that they can present no satisfactory evidence in justi- 
fication of their assertions. Can any one produce a letter 
or note from the Earl of Southampton to Shaksper evi- 
dencing the gift? or can a copy thereof be produced? 
Can any receipt or memorandum be found penned by or 
for Shaksper, acknowledging the receipt of so large a sum 
of money? Is there a record of such a transaction any 
where? 

The same question might be asked as to the letter 
which it is pretended that King James wrote to Shaksper. 
Such a letter or a copy of it, if produced and authenti- 
cated, would put an end to all controversy, if it acknowl- 
edged directly or indirectly Shaksper's ability as a writer. 
Whatever faults King James had, he could not be accused 
of a want either of learning or discernment as to scholar- 
ship. If King James knew Shaksper, some evidence of 
that knowledge would long ago have been unearthed. 

The reader might also ask when and where did Shaksper 
teach school? Who were his pupils? What evidence can 



138 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

be produced that he ever taught a school, either in War- 
wickshire or any where else? 

And if he was a lawyer's clerk, and a valued assistant 
to lawyers in Stratford or any where else in the prepara- 
tion of their cases, how and when and by what reliable 
authority were the facts as to his clerkship and valuable 
services ascertained? It is only necessary for the reader 
to refer to the "Outlines" of Halliwell-Phillips to discover 
that there is no warrant for the story that he was a school- 
master or a lawyer's clerk. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CONJECTURES AND GUESSES WHICH MAKE UP THE 
SHAKSPER BIOGRAPHY. 

"Thou hast damnable iteration." 

—First Henry IV, i, 2. 

I will ask the student reader to go over this chapter 
carefully, not because it will interest or please, but for the 
reason that it discloses how the life of an ignorant man 
has been manufactured or transformed into that of an 
intellectual, talented, and learned poet, by means of 
conjecture and bold assertion, based, as one of the manu- 
facturers has to admit, not upon what was or is really 
known about the man, but upon the poetry which is cir- 
culated under a name somewhat like his. 

It is very natural that the believers in the Shaksper 
claim to authorship should resort to the plays and poems 
to obtain material for their biographies of the man. His 
real life facts are so meager, so inappropriate, so disappoint- 
ing, that they are compelled to formulate biographies of 
their idol based entirely on conjecture. A Shaksper biog- 
rapher reasons thus: "Since nothing, absolutely nothing, 
of the slightest importance is known of the man called 
William Shaksper or Shakespeare, the reputed author of 
the Shakespeare plays and poems, except through the 
plays and poems themselves, I will manufacture a life of 
the man, that is, of such a man as the writer of the plays 
doubtless was. I will make him a schoolmaster. I will 
make him a lawyer's clerk and accurate adviser of all the 
lawyers in and about Stratford-on-Avon. I will make 



140 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

him a gentle, courteous, able, and refined scholar. I will 
make him the petted companion of noblemen and the 
favorite, not only of the Virgin Queen, but also of the 
scholarly James. I will make him a traveler and sojourner 
in foreign lands, and a master of modern as well as of 
ancient languages. I will make him the patron and helper 
of young and aspiring, but inexperienced, poets. I will 
make him so alluring, mentally and physically, that such 
manufactured charms and gifts will account for his being 
not only courted, but even seduced, by a maid of honor 
of the high and mighty Elizabeth. And in order to shut 
off the criticisms of doubters and unbelievers, I will make 
him so intellectually tall, so much higher and greater than 
other literary men, that he will appear to the world as 
utterly indifferent to praise or censure. I will exalt him 
above all writers of every age and clime, not by the power 
of fact, but by means of conjecture and invention. All 
that I write in this vein will captivate and suit the popu- 
lar taste. Populus vult decipi et decipiatur." 

The biographies of Shaksper, therefore, are not made 
up of real, actual facts, but of guesses, conjectures, and 
possibilities. They are mainly works of the imagination, 
more or less adorned and beautified according to the ability 
and talents of the composer of the biography. 

I will commence with Collier, and I will merely give 
in this chapter a few of such phrases as are constantly 
employed by him and the other writers of Shaksper's 
biography to make up a life of Shaksper. What he de- 
sires the indulgent public to believe as fact, he puts in his 
biography in the conjectural form, thus: "It has been 
supposed that. Little doubt can be entertained that. 
It was probably. It has generally been stated and be- 



CONJECTURES AND GUESSES. 141 

lieved. We can not help thinking that. It is, we appre- 
hend. Malone conjectures that. It is highly probable 
that. We decidedly concur with Malone in thinking 
that. We doubt if. We may presume that. Consid- 
ering all the circumstances, there might be good reason. 
We may take it for granted that. It has been al- 
leged that. We therefore apprehend that. It is very 
possible, therefore. It has been matter of speculation 
that. We have additional reasons for thinking that. 
We can have no hesitation in believing that. We also 
consider it more than probable that. There is some 
little ground for thinking that. If the evidence upon 
this point were even more scanty, we should be convinced 
that. It was at this juncture probably, if indeed he 
were ever in that country, that Shaksper visited Italy. 
We have already stated our deliberate and distinct opinion 
that. It must have been about this period that. We 
may be sure that. We have concluded, as we think we 
may do very fairly, that. Another reason for thinking 
that, etc., is that. We may feel assured that. As far as 
we can judge, there is good reason for believing that. It 
is our opinion that. It is our conviction that. We appre- 
hend likewise that. It is not at all improbable that. Our 
chief reason for thinking it unlikely that. We may 
suppose that. We may assume, perhaps, in the absence 
of any direct testimony that. It is highly probable 
that. We suppose Shakespeare to have ceased to act in 
the summer of 1604. There is no doubt that. There 
is reason for believing that. It is possible, as we 
have said, that. Such may have been the nature of 
the transaction. We can only conjecture. Nevertheless, 
although we suppose him. It is very likely that. 



142 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

We hardly need entertain a doubt that," and so on usque 
ad nauseam. 

It is by such conjectural phrases as the above that 
Collier makes up the life of William Shaksper, and he makes 
the following candid confession in the last paragraph of 
the concluding chapter "If the details of his life be im- 
perfect, the history of his mind is complete; and we leave 
the reader to turn from the contemplation of the man 
Shakespeare to the study of the poet Shakespeare." 

Halliwell-Phillips is more modest in his guesses and 
conjectures. He entitles his two large volumes "The 
Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare," and he has the can- 
dor to say, "I have no favorite theories to advocate, no 
wild conjectures to drag into a temporary existence, and 
no bias, save one inspired by the hope that Shakespearean 
discussions may be controlled by submission to the author- 
ity of practical evidences." And he further adds that, 
" it will thus be seen that no matter what pains a biographer 
may take to furnish his store, the result will not present a 
more brilliant appearance than did the needy shop of 
Romeo's Apothecary." He then forgets his resolution 
not to conjecture, and proceeds to conjecture as follows: 
"It must have been somewhere about this period, 1568, 
that Shakespeare entered into the mysteries of the horn- 
book and the A, B, C." (Vol. 1, page 40.) Again, on page 
46, he says, " that Shakespeare in his early youth witnessed 
representations of some of these mysteries, can not admit 
of reasonable doubt." On page 53, he says: "Although 
there is no certain information on the subject, it may per- 
haps be assumed that. The best authorities unite in 
telling us that." On page 58, he says: "There can be no 
hesitation in concluding that." 



CONJECTURES AND GUESSES. 143 

I will now take up his conjectural phrases and give a 
few instances: "There are reasons for believing that. It 
is, however, all but certain that. It may be gathered 
from, etc., that. It is most likely, indeed, all but certain 
that. There is an old tradition which avers that there is 
every probability that. It may then fairly be said that. 
It is far more likely that. That the poet was intimately 
acquainted, etc., may be fairly assumed. It is all but 
impossible that. There can be little doubt that. It was 
the general belief that. It is not unlikely that. It is not 
likely that." 

Sidney Lee has to resort also to the same guessing sys- 
tem in his life of Shakespeare. Here are a few samples: 
"It was doubtless with. It is possible that. There is a 
likelihood too that. We may assume that. It is unlikely 
that. It is therefore probable that. In all probability. 
It was probably. It is fair to infer. There is every indi- 
cation that." 

How Shaksper indulged in foreign travel is very cleverly 
attempted to be proved by the biographer's own experi- 
ence. I quote from "William Shakespeare Portrayed by 
Himself," or a revelation of the poet written by Robert 
Waters, at page 222: "Considering, therefore, how little 
we know of the life of the poet, and how much he knew 
of the world, what scenes may he not have witnessed, 
what people may he not have seen, and what subjects 
may he not have studied, that we wot not of! His friend, 
the Earl of Southampton, was captain of one of the prin- 
cipal ships in the expedition against Spain in 1597, and 
afterwards had the command of a squadron under Essex. 
May not the poet have accompanied him on one of his 
voyages? His knowledge of the continent is too marvel- 



144 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

ously exact to have been learned at second hand. Take, 
for instance, the Prince's, or rather King Henry's, descrip- 
tion of French ground. The first thing that strikes one 
on making a journey from England to France is the differ- 
ence in the general aspect of French soil, which looks dull 
and dark as compared with that of England. Now mark 
how King Henry describes it: 

' If we be hindered 
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood 
Discolor.' 

"I have been in France, and I know of no word that 
describes its soil so exact as this. Now which is more 
probable, that the poet's knowledge came from reading 
traveler's books, or that it came from actual observation? 
So sure as Prince Henry had seen France with his own 
eyes, so sure had Shakespeare." 

Mr. Waters' question can be very easily answered. 
There is no probability to be worried over at all. Now 
mark, Mr. Waters, to quote Prince Henry's own words, 
"How plain a tale shall put you down." 

The fact recited below shows how worthless " may not's " 
and "may have been's" actually are. If Mr. Robert 
Waters will procure Appleton Morgan's "Study of the War- 
wickshire Dialect" and turn to page 460 of that carefully 
written work, he will discover that the writer of the play 
hastily borrowed from Holinshed. He will there read 
the following : 

"A great part of 'Henry VIII' substantially consists 
of centos from Holinshed, and the dramatist often re- 
produces the speeches given by the historian. Thus 
Holinshed says that Henry answers the defiance of Mount- 



CONJECTURES AND GUESSES. 145 

joy, the herald: 'I wish not anie of you so unadvised as 
to be the occasion that I dye your tawnie ground with 
your red blood.' Shakespeare merely reduces this to 
rhythm, thus: 

' If we be hindered 
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood 
Discolor.' 

''Still more curious is the following : Holinshed remarks 
in his history of Richard III, ' Before such great things, 
men's hearts of a secret instinct of nature misgive them, 
as the sea, without wind, swelleth himself before a tem- 
pest.' Shakespeare saw the appositeness of the simile 
and paraphrased it: 

' By a divine instinct men's minds distrust 
Pursuing danger — as by proof we see 
The water swell before a boisterous storm.' " 

Another writer, Fleay, goes beyond the others and 
boldly uses the phrase, "I conjecture that," to make his 
biography acceptable and palatable to the unsuspecting 
reader. 

Such are the guesses and conjectural phrases that are 
used by the Shaksper biographers to make an impression 
on the reading public as to the ability of Shaksper to write 
plays and poems, and they do make an impression on the 
careless or ignorant readers. Where the facts do not fit, 
some excuse is found to bury the fact, and where there 
are no facts, invention is used to make a learned man out 
of one whose handwriting shows that he was too ignorant 
to write his own name correctly. 



146 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

After reading the made-up and padded biographies, 
palmed off upon the innocent and gullible public as true 
lives of Shakespeare, the sensible reader feels like exclaim- 
ing with Coleridge, "In spite of all the biographies, ask 
your own hearts — ask your own common sense — to conceive 
the possibility of this man being . . . the anomalous, the wild, 
the irregular genius of our daily criticism. What! Are we 
to have miracles in sport? Or (I speak reverently) does 
God choose idiots by whom to convey divine truths to man?" 

Or if still imbued with Shaksper idolatry, he can at 
least say with Hallam, when he alluded to the fact that 
all that the commentators told him of the man Shake- 
speare pictured him as anything but the master he was 
represented to be, "If there was a Shakespeare of earth, 
as I suspect, there was also one of heaven, and it is of him 
we desire to learn more." 

It will enable the reader to partly verify what I have 
asserted by making brief citations from the most noted 
biographers of Shaksper. And first, here is one from 
Rolfe's "Shakespeare, the Boy," at page 118: 

"How long William remained in the grammar school 
we do not know, but probably not more than six }^ears, or 
until he was thirteen. In 1577, his father was beginning 
to have bad luck in his business, and the boy very likely had 
to be taken from school for work of some sort. As Ben 
Jonson said, 'Shakespeare had small Latin and less Greek' 
— perhaps none — and this was probably due to his leaving 
the grammar school before the average age. However 
that may have been, we may be pretty sure that all the 
regular schooling he ever had was got there." 

The next two citations are samples from Lee's " Life of 
Shakespeare." The first one is from page 79: "There is 



CONJECTURES AND GUESSES. 147 

a likelihood too that Spenser, the greatest of Shake- 
speare's poetic contemporaries, was first drawn by the 
poems into the ranks of Shakespeare's admirers. It is 
hardly doubtful that Spenser described Shakespeare in 
'Colin Clout's Come Home Again' (completed in 1594) 
under the name of 'Aetion.'" The second one is copied 
from page 271, and illustrates the fact that Ward's testi- 
mony and the Bidford tradition, however ancient and 
venerable they really were, and although the first was the 
testimony of a preacher, did not particularly agree with 
his idea of what the real Shakespeare ought to be, and so 
he repudiates them "as unproven." "According to the 
testimony of John Ward, the vicar, Shakespeare enter- 
tained at New Place his two friends, Michael Drayton and 
Ben Jonson, in this same spring of 1616, but it seems drank 
too hard, for Shakespeare died of a fever there contracted. 
A popular local legend, which was not recorded until 1762, 
credited Shakespeare with engaging at an earlier date in 
a prolonged and violent drinking bout at Bidford, a neigh- 
boring village, but his achievements as a hard drinker may 
be dismissed as unproven." 

I will give one more citation from a most remarkable 
book, called "Shakespeare's True Life," by James Walters, 
at page 160. It will be noticed how, for the purpose of 
helping his pet theory that Shaksper was a lawyer's clerk 
or assistant, he chooses to differ from Rolfe on the length 
of time of the grammar school tuition, and it will also be 
noticed how cleverly he invents the facts as to Shaksper's 
legal education and training. He even furnishes us with a 
graphic account of the lawyers who stirred up strife in 
Stratford, and takes pains to place Shaksper as clerical 
assistant in the office of one of them. So litigious, he says, 



148 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

were the Stratfordians, that there was a constant demand 
by the whole corps of lawyers for his valuable services as 
a connexion. How this talented biographer gathered all 
these incidents in Shaksper's early life, he fails to explain. 
If he invented them, he certainly surpasses all the others 
in inventive power, and that is saying a great deal. He 
says, on page 160: "There is little doubt as to his having 
left the grammar school at an age we in these days deem 
very early. In every feature of the matter, the balance 
of evidence favors his having acted as clerk assistant in 
the office of Walter Roche, his earliest instructor in the 
guild school. There are known to have been some half 
dozen attorneys practicing in that town at that time; one, 
in particular, acted for his father and the Hathaway 
family. Six lawyers in a place of its size would have an 
active time in setting their fellow townsmen by the ears 
sufficient to yield a living for the whole six, and it is 
known to have been much given to litigation in those 
days. Either of the number commanding his services 
would derive no small advantage from what then, as now, 
is termed 'connexion.' Apart from young Will's talent in 
the office, we may rest assured that whatever he under- 
took would speedily bear the impress of his thought and 
action, and it is but reasonable to infer that a lawyer of 
clerical antecedents would remunerate him for services 
fairly, according to his ability and energy." 

It is evident that the writer is not too tame. He would 
not be whipped for overdoing Termagant or out-heroding 
Herod. He can shoot arrows of imagination with a very 
long bow. His padding is unrivaled. 

One of the many biographers, Frederick G. Fleay, 
shows in his introduction that he is very much ashamed of 



CONJECTURES AND GUESSES. 149 

his predecessors, for he says: "Previous investigators 
have, with industrious minuteness, already ascertained 
for us every detail that can reasonably be expected of 
Shaksper's private life. With laborious research they 
have raked together the records of petty debts, of parish 
assessments, of scandalous tradition, and of idle gossip. 
I do not think that, when stripped of verbiage and what 
the slang of the day calls padding, much more than this 
can be claimed as the result of the voluminous writings 
on this side of his career." 

For my part, I wish that, for the sake of the truth of 
history, these searchers after facts had given their time 
to as industrious a search for the real author or authors 
of the poems and plays as they gave to these wretched, 
paltry details, which disgust the readers of Shaksper 
biographies. 

One of the most amusing facts in connection with the 
Shaksperite idolaters is that when Ireland perpetrated his 
forgeries, consisting of a pretended letter of Queen Eliza- 
beth to Shaksper, a pretended letter of Shaksper to the 
Earl of Southampton, pretended writings of Shaksper, 
and part of a pretended letter of Southampton to Shak- 
sper, the men of taste, antiquarians and heralds, who 
viewed them unanimously testified in favor of their 
authenticity, and the world so believed until Malone, in 
his " Inquiry," exposed the forgery. 

I can not help setting out from Malone's " Inquiry," page 
163, for the amusement of the reader, one stanza of the 
verses pretended by Ireland to have been addressed by 
Shaksper to his mistress. The first stanza will suffice to 
show the reader how gullible Shaksper idolaters have been. 
I will not say "are now." 



150 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

" Is there in heav-enne aught more rare 
Than thou sweete nymphe of Avon fayre, 
Is there onne earthe a manne more trewe 
Than Willy Shakespeare is toe you." 

Webb, in his "Mystery of Shakespeare," disposes of the 
conjectures and "might-have-been's" of the eulogists of 
Shaksper when he says: "The world is not made up of 
'might-have-been's,' and we can not accept probabilities 
as facts, and we have not a particle of evidence to justify 
these assumptions. Still, if we choose to indulge our 
fancy, and to endow the player with that enormous re- 
ceptivity with which he is endowed by Professor Dowden, 
if with the Professor we choose to compare him to the 
Arctic whale, which gulps in whole shoals of acalephse 
and molluscs, we may account for that vast and various 
amount of information which strikes us with amazement 
in the later works of Shakespeare." 



CHAPTER XV. 

shaksper's real and traditional life. 
"As tedious as a twice-told tale.^ 

—King John, iii, 4. 

If William Shaksper of Stratford-upon-Avon did not 
write the plays and poems now attributed to him, the world 
at large would care very little about him, his family or 
his life-history. But that life-history, where it does not 
rest on vague tradition or mere invention but upon certain 
and fixed facts, is valuable as a means to identify the 
man Shaksper. 

Rowe, the earliest biographer, says that he was the son 
of Mr. John Shaksper, who was a dealer in wool, while 
Aubrey says that his father was a butcher. William 
Shaksper was baptized on the 26th day of April, 1564,, 
the baptismal entry on the register being as follows: 

" 1564 April 2Qth, Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere." 

On what day, month, and year he was born, no record 
has been found, and hence the date of his birth can not be 
fixed. Aubrey says that when he was a boy he exercised 
his father's trade. Rowe says that "his father could give 
him no better education than his own employment, and 
that William went for a short time to a free school. He 
married while he was very young the daughter of one 
Hathaway, and afterwards falling into ill company he 
robbed the park of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote and to 
escape prosecution ran away from his home and his family 
to London. He died in the fifty- third year of his age, and 



152 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

was buried on the north side of the chancel in the great 
church at Stratford. He had three daughters, two of 
whom lived to be married; Judith, the elder, to one Mr. 
Thomas Quiney and Susannah to Dr. John Hall." This 
is all that Rowe says he "could learn of any note, either 
relating to himself or his family." He adds that "the 
character of the man is best seen in his writings." He 
could have added that Shaksper's father and mother 
could not write their own names; that Judith Quiney, his 
daughter, could not write her name ; that Susannah Hall 
was illiterate, and that William Shaksper could hardly 
write his own name. 

Rowe produced this biography in the year 1709. 
Afterward the Symmons edition of the plays from the 
text of Steevens and Malone was issued, and Symmons, 
the editor and a believer in Shaksper's capacity to write 
the plays, appended the following biography of the 
man: 

" Little more than two centuries have elapsed since 
William Shakespeare conversed with our tongue and trod 
the selfsame soil with ourselves, and if it were not for the 
records kept by our church in its register of births, mar- 
riages, and burials, we should be at this moment as per- 
sonally ignorant of ' the sweet swan of Avon ' as we are of 
the old minstrel and rhapsodist of Meles. That William 
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon ; that he mar- 
ried and had three children; that he died before he had 
attained old age, and was buried in his native town, are 
positively the only facts in the personal history of this 
extraordinary man of which we are certainly possessed. 

"To fill up this bare and most unsatisfactory outline, 
we must have recourse to the vague reports of unsubstan- 



shaksper's real and traditional life. 153 

tial tradition or to the still more shadowy inferences of 
lawless and vagabond conjecture." 

We know now, however, that Shaksper traded in prop- 
erty; that he signed his name to a deed and , mortgage ; 
that Francis Collins prepared a will for him which he 
signed in three different places, and that four of those 
signatures are preserved. We know also that he had 
petty lawsuits and that he was a money-getter. We do 
not know that he died from the effects of a drunken 
debauch, for that statement rests on the same shadowy 
foundation as do the stories about his dealings with the 
literati and their sacred majesties, Elizabeth and James. 

Nothing upholds or sustains the pretension that Shak- 
sper could write poetry at all except the two poetical 
effusions of Jonson and his conversation with Drummond. 
Without them, the world would have no faith in William 
Shaksper. 

One of the Shaksper biographers, Fleay, speaking of 
the various Lives published, says that they have shown 
beyond doubt that Shaksper was born at Stratford-on- 
Avon, was married, had three children, left his home, 
made money, returned to Stratford, invested his savings 
there and died. In speaking of Phillips' "Outlines of 
Shaksper's Life," he says: "This book is a treasure-house 
of documents, and it is greatly to be regretted that they 
are not published by themselves, apart from hypotheses 
founded on idle rumors or fallacious misreasoning. I do 
not know of any work so full of fanciful theories and 
ignes fatui, likely to entice a deluded traveler out of the 
beaten path into strange quagmires. There is much else 
besides documents given in the present treatise, — dis- 
cussions as to who might have been Shakespeare's school- 



154 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

master, whether he was apprenticed to a butcher, whether 
he stole a deer out of a non-existent park, whether he 
held horses at the theatre door or was employed in any 
other equine capacity, whether he went to Denmark or 
Venice, and whether Lord Bacon wrote his plays for him." 

The facts as to Shaksper's litigious spirit are brought 
out very prominently by Sidney Lee in his "Life of Shak- 
sper," at page 206, through an enumeration of his petty 
lawsuits. "Shakespeare," he says, " inherited his father's 
love of litigation and stood vigorously for his rights in all 
his business relations. In March, 1600, he recovered in 
London a debt of 7£ from one John Clayton. In July, 
1604, in the local court at Stratford, he sued one Philip 
Rogers, to whom he had supplied since the preceding 
March malt to the value of 1 £, 19s, lOd, and had on 
June 25th lent 2s in cash. Rogers had paid back 6s, 
and Shakespeare sought the balance of the account, 1 £, 
15s, lOd. During 1608 and 1609 he was at law with 
another fellow townsman, John Addenbroke." He recov- 
ered a judgment against Addenbroke on February 15, 
1609, for 6 £, but Addenbroke left the town. Lee adds 
that Shakespeare avenged himself by proceeding against 
one Thomas Hornby, who had acted as the absconding 
debtor's bail. 

In commenting upon these facts in Shaksper's life- 
history, the late Richard Grant White gave utterance to 
the following words of lamentation, in which I am sure 
the most ardent worshiper of the divine William will 
coincide : 

"These stories grate upon our feelings. The pursuit 
of an impoverished man for the sake of imprisoning him 
and depriving him, both of the power of paying his debt 



shaksper's real and traditional life. 155 

and supporting himself and his family, is an incident in 
Shakespeare's life which it requires the utmost allowance 
and consideration for the practice of the time and country 
to enable us to contemplate with equanimity. Satisfac- 
tion is impossible. The biographer of Shakespeare must 
record these facts, because the literary antiquaries have 
unearthed and brought them forward as new particulars 
of the life of Shakespeare. We hunger, and we receive 
these husks; we open our mouths for food, and we break 
our teeth against these stones." 

Passing from his real life, let us take up his life as 
tradition gives it. So much of the life-history of William 
Shaksper as depends upon tradition has a tendency to 
show that he could not have written the plays and poems. 
The educational tradition is as follows: I quote from 
Rowe: 

"The narrowness of his father's circumstances and the 
want of his assistance at home forced his father to with- 
draw him from thence (the Stratford school) and unhap- 
pily prevented his farther proficiency." 

If, now, we rely upon this statement, the presumption 
follows that William Shaksper was an uneducated man. 
A few months at a Stratford grammar school could not 
possibly avail to educate anybody, however naturally 
gifted. Collier, who spares no effort to magnify Shak- 
sper's abilities, admits that we are destitute of all evidence 
beyond Rowe's assertion. He says: "That his father and 
mother could give him no instruction is quite certain 
from the proof that we have adduced that neither of them 
could write," and he adds further, "As we are ignorant 
of the time when he went to school, we are also in the 
dark as to the period when he left it. Rowe indeed has 



156 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

told us that the poverty of John Shakespeare and the 
necessity of employing his son profitably at home induced 
him at an early age to withdraw him from the place of 
instruction." The presumption of Shaksper's want of 
education is further strengthened by two established 
facts — one that his handwriting, now said to be preserved 
in the British Museum, shows that he could hardly write 
his own name, and the other that he gave his own children 
no education. 

The next traditional statement is that " he, Shakespeare, 
had by a misfortune common enough to young fellows 
fallen into ill company; and among them some that made 
a frequent practice of deer stealing, engaged him more 
than once in robbing the park that belonged to Sir Thomas 
Lucy of Charlecote, near Stratford, who had him whipped 
and sometimes imprisoned, and at last made him fly his 
native country to his great advancement. But his revenge 
was so great that he is his Justice Clodpate." Since there 
is no Justice Clodpate referred to or introduced into the 
plays, the tradition, at the very least, is devoid of accuracy. 
But even if this story were true, it affects the moral char- 
acter of Shaksper detrimentally, and if all his known life 
facts do not militate against the charge, as we shall here- 
after see, it would seem that he was not only a pilferer 
but a vindictive person. 

As deer stealing was not to his credit, Malone and 
others furiously attack the tradition. 

We come now to the tradition which treats of Shak- 
sper's lasciviousness, as set out in Volume 1, page 331, of 
the "History of English Dramatic Poetry and the Stage." 

"If in the course of my inquiries, I have been unlucky 
enough (I may perhaps say) to find anything which 



shaksper's real and traditional life. 157 

represents our great dramatist in a less favorable light, 
as a human being with human infirmities, I may lament 
it, but I do not therefore feel myself at liberty to conceal 
and suppress the fact. The anecdote is this: 'Upon a 
time when Burbage played Rich. 3, there was a citizen 
grew so far in liking with him, that before she went from 
the play, she appointed him to come that night unto her, 
by the name of Rich, the 3. Shakespeare overhearing 
their conclusion, went before, was entertained, and 
at his game ere Burbage came. Then, message being 
brought that Rich, the 3 was at the dore, Shake- 
speare caused returns to be made, that William the 
Conqueror was before Rich, the 3. Shakespeare's name 
Willm.'" 

If this story be true, to say the very least, it presents 
the man Shaksper to us in a very unfavorable light. No 
comment is necessary. 

Next and last in order we have the traditional account 
of William Shaksper's last sickness and death. 

The diary of the Rev. John Ward contains the follow- 
ing undated paragraph : 

"Shakespeare, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merie 
meeting, and it seems, drank too hard, for Shakespeare 
died of a fever there contracted." 

Here, then, we have four items of traditional evidence 
which, if we accept them as in the main reliable, show 
that William Shaksper was a person of limited education; 
that he was, while a young man, addicted to bad habits, 
and the associate of poachers and idlers; that in the 
middle of life, he was lewd and lascivious; and that his 
last sickness and death were caused by a drunken 
spree. 



158 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

If we connect these traditional statements with the 
known facts about his life, it will be very plainly seen 
that they correspond. 

His illiteracy is confirmed by his wretched handwriting 
and by his failure to educate his own children. If he 
had been a man of good habits and honest and straight- 
forward in his dealings, he never would have attempted 
to perpetrate the fraud as to the grant of arms for his 
father. It he had been a virtuous gentleman, he would 
have treated his wife decently and would not have indulged 
in any illicit amours. And if he had been the exemplary, 
gentle, modest, and temperate man whom his admirers 
desire all mankind to worship, he never would have 
indulged in a wretched drinking bout with Ben Jonson or 
any one else. I do not wonder that Hallam says of the 
man whom he supposes to be the author of the plays 
that " to be told that he played a trick on a brother player 
in a licentious amour, or that he died of a drunken frolic, 
does not exactly inform us of the man who wrote Lear." 

Rowe, being unable to fit Shaksper's life to the plays, 
says that "the character of the man is best seen in his 
writings." The reader will agree with me that the char- 
acter of the man would be of some importance if he had 
the ability to write the Shakespeare plays and poems. 
Shaksper may have been a pilferer, a usurer, a libertine, 
a drunkard, and prone to litigiosity, and yet with all 
these faults, he might have been a competent composer 
of plays and poems, if he had had the requisite education. 
Francis Bacon, to whom the plays have been ascribed by 
many, was a barrator, a fawning sycophant, an ingrate, 
and a persistent office-hunter, but he was a well-educated 
and trained scholar. 



shaksper's real and traditional life. 159 

The Shaksper biographers, acting on Rowe's sugges- 
tion, and rinding nothing savory in Shaksper's life, have 
undertaken to manufacture long and learned biographies 
of the man, not from the facts, but from the writings 
wrongly attributed to him. All of them, except Farmer, 
have overlooked the disabling fact of Shaksper's ignorance! 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE PLAYS WERE WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR 
PROTESTANTS. 

" Art thou a churchman?" 

—Twelfth Night, iii, 1. 

No disinterested and observing person can read the 
Shakespeare plays without noticing that the author or 
authors were thoroughly Protestant. Hatred of Roman 
Catholicism appears in the plays, wherever it was thought 
necessary to allude to any form of religion. While there 
were occasional flings at Puritanism, they were slight and 
weak when contrasted with the heavy blows aimed in the 
plays at the pretensions of the Papacy. The writer or 
writers were ardent believers in the principles of the 
English reformers. A few examples will suffice to show 
not only that these exhibitions of detestation of Roman 
Catholicism were inserted in the plays to please the adher- 
ents of the Reformation, but also that they were the utter- 
ances of a Protestant zealot. In the play of "The Life 
and Death of King John," Act 3, Scene 1, Pandulph, the 
Pope's legate, is made to say: 

" Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven ! 
To thee, King John, my holy errand is. 
I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal, 
And from Pope Innocent the legate here, 
Do in his name religiously demand 
Why thou against the church, our holy mother, 
So wilfully dost spurn ; and force perforce 
Keep Stephen Langton, chosen archbishop 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR PROTESTANTS. 161 

Of Canterbury, from that holy see? 
This, in our 'foresaid holy father's name, 
Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee. 

K. John — 

What earthy name to interrogatories 

Can task the free breath of a sacred king? 

Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name 

So slight, unworthy and ridiculous, - 

To charge me to an answer, as the pope. 

Tell him this tale ; and from the mouth of England 

Add thus much more, that no Italian priest 

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 

But as we, under heaven, are supreme head, 

So, under heaven, that great supremacy, 

Where we do reign, we will alone uphold, 

Without the assistance of a mortal hand : 

So tell the pope, all reverence set apart 

To him and his usurp'd authority. 

King Phi. — 

Brother of England, you blaspheme in this. 

King John — 

Though you, and all the kings of Christendom 

Are led so grossly by this meddling priest, 

Dreading the curse that money may buy out; 

And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust, 

Purchase corrupted pardon of a man 

Who in that sale sells pardon from himself, 

Though you and all the rest so grossly led 

This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish, 

Yet I alone, alone do me oppose 

Against the pope, and count his friends my foes. 

Pand. — 

Then, by the lawful power that I have, 
Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate : 



162 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

And blessed shall he be that doth revolt 
From his allegiance to an heretic; 
And meritorious shall that hand be call'd, 
Canonized and worshipp'd as a saint, 
That takes away by any secret course 
Thy hateful life." 

And a little further on, Pandulph, addressing King 
Philip, says: 

" Philip of France, on peril of a curse, 
Let go the hand of that arch-heretic; 
And raise the power of France upon his head, 
Unless he do submit himself to Rome." 

In Titus Andronicus, Act 5, Scene 1, Aaron says, 
"with twenty popish tricks and ceremonies." 

Henry the Eighth is a thoroughly Protestant play. 
The second scene of act five, which depicts the bringing 
of Cranmer before the Council Chamber, the accusation 
against him of filling the whole realm with new opinions 
and heresies, his defense and protection by the bluff 
Harry, who had shaken off the temporal tyranny of Rome, 
is clearly the work of an enemy of the Roman Catholic 
Church. The grand eulogium pronounced by Cranmer 
upon Queen Elizabeth at her baptism, contained in the 
fourth scene of the same act, testifies also very strongly 
to the Protestantism of the writer of the play. Cranmer 
says: 

"Let me speak, sir, 
For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter 
Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth. 
This royal infant — heaven still move about her! — 
Though in her cradle, yet now promises 
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, 
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be — 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR PROTESTANTS. 163 

But few now living can behold that goodness — 

A pattern to all princes living with her, 

And all that shall succeed : Saba was never 

More covetous of wisdom, and fair virtue, 

Than this pure soul shall be : All princely graces, 

That mould up such a mighty piece as this is, 

With all the virtues that attend the good, 

Shall still be doubled on her: truth shall nurse her; 

Holy and heavenly thoughts shall counsel her : 

She shall be lov'd and fear'd: her own shall bless her; 

Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, 

And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with 

her: 
In her days every man shall eat in safety, 
Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing 
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors : 
God shall be truly known; and those about her 
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour, 
And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. 
Nor shall this peace sleep with her: but as when 
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, 
Her ashes new create another heir, 
As great in admiration as herself; 
So shall she leave her blessedness to one, 
When heaven shall call her from this cloud of dark- 
ness, 
Who from the sacred ashes of her honour 
Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, 
And so stand fix'd : Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, 
That were the servants to this chosen infant, 
Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him : 
Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, 
His honour and the greatness of his name 
Shall be, and make new nations: he shall flourish, 
And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches 
To all the plains about him: Our children's children 
Shall see this, and bless heaven. 



164 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

i 

King — 

Thou speakest wonders. 

Cran. — 

She shall be, to the happiness of England, 

An aged princess; many days shall see her, 

And yet no day without a deed to crown it. 

Would I had known no more ! but she must die ; 

She must, the saints must have her; yet a virgin, 

A most unspotted lily shall she pass 

To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her." 

Donnelly, in his Cryptogram, calls this portion of the 
play the Apotheosis of Cranmer. He says that "it is to 
be remembered that it was in this reign that Protestant- 
ism was established in England, and the man who, above 
all others, was instrumental in bringing about the great 
change was Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury. He, above all other men, was hated 
by the Roman Catholics. He, it was, who had sanc- 
tioned the divorce of Henry from Catharine; he, it was, 
who had delivered the crown to Anne upon the corona- 
tion; he had supported the suppression of the monas- 
teries; he had persecuted the Roman Catholic prelates 
and people, sending numbers to the stake; and when the 
Roman Catholics returned to power under Mary, one of 
the first acts of the government was to burn him alive 
opposite Baliol College. It is impossible that a Roman 
Catholic writer of the next reign could have gone out of 
his way to defend and praise Cranmer, to represent him 
as a good and holy man and even an inspired prophet. 
And yet, all this we find in the play of Henry VIII. The 
play is, in fact, in large part, an apotheosis of Cranmer.' r 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR PROTESTANTS. 165 

A Roman Catholic would not have made Juliet say to 
Friar Lawrence, in Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 1 : 

" Are you at leisure, holy father, now; 
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?" 

Sir Walter Scott, a good Protestant, knew better when 
he said, in Ivanhoe, Chapter 32: "A mass amongst 
Christian men best begins on a busy morning." 

A Protestant dramatist, however scantily paid for his 
productions, and writing currente calamo in order to fulfil 
his contract with the manager of the theatre, would not 
care whether he said evening, morning, or noonday mass. 
For illustration as to haste, when Monday agreed with 
Henslowe to write a comedy for the Court, Drayton 
guaranteed that it should be ready in two weeks. (Hen- 
slowe's Diary, page 131.) 

Recurring to King John, it should be stated that in 
the " Troublesome Reign of King John," the earlier play 
which afforded much of the material for the construction 
of the King John of the Folio of 1623, the flings at the 
Roman Catholic Church were more virulent and bitter 
than in the present play. Collier, in his introduction to 
the revised play, commenting upon the Troublesome 
Reign, says, " although Shakespeare, like the author or 
authors of the old King John, employs the Bastard forcibly 
to raise money from the monasteries in England, he avoids 
the scenes of extortion and ribaldry in the older play in 
which the monks and nuns are turned into ridicule and 
the indecency and licentiousness of their lives exposed. 
Supposing the old King John to have been brought upon 
the stage not long after the defeat of the Spanish Armada 
in 1588, when the hatred of the Roman Catholics was at 



166 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

its height, such an exhibition must have been extremely 
gratifying to the taste of vulgar audiences." 

It will be clear to any one who will carefully read the 
first part of Henry the Sixth, that the writer of the fourth 
scene of the fifth act was disposed to picture the Maid of 
Orleans, who is held in saintly reverence by many mem- 
bers of the Roman Catholic Church, as a most depraved 
and immoral woman, guilty of witchcraft and fornication 
on her own confession. I am inclined to think, however, 
that this denunciation of Joan of Arc sprang more from 
the desire of the writer to pander to the British feeling 
against and the British hatred of France, prevailing at 
that time, than from any religious motive. 

The allusions to Puritanism are jocose rather than 
severe, as, for instance, in Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3, 
the following dialogue takes place: 

"Mar. — Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of a Puritan. 

Sir And. — 0! if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog. 

Sir To. — What, for being a Puritan? thy exquisite 
reason, dear knight? 

Sir And. — I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have 
reason good enough. 

Mar. — The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything 
constantly, but a time pleaser." 

So also in All's Well, Act 1, Scene 3, the clown says, 
"for young Charbon, the Puritan, and old Poysam, the 
papist," and a little further on, he says, "though honesty 
be no Puritan." 

InWinter'sTale,Act4,Scene 2, the clown says: "But one 
Puritan amongst them and he says psalms to hornpipes," 
while in Pericles, Act 4, Scene 6, the bawd says, speaking 
of Marina, "She would make a Puritan of the devil." 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR PROTESTANTS. 167 

If Francis Bacon either originated or revised the Shake- 
speare plays, or some of them, the citations from the plays, 
above set out, would be in consonance with his own belief. 
Thus, for instance, in his instructions to Sir George Villiers, 
afterward Duke of Buckingham, as to how Villiers should 
govern himself in the station of Prime Minister of the 
kingdom, he said, "In the first place, be you yourself 
rightly persuaded and settled in the true Protestant re- 
ligion professed by the Church of England, which, doubt- 
less, is as sound and orthodox in the doctrine thereof as 
any Christian Church in the world." 

A little farther on, still speaking of the Church of 
England, he said: "The enemies and underminers thereof 
are the Roman Catholics, so styling themselves, on the 
one hand, whose tenets are inconsistent with the truth of 
religion professed and protested by the Church of Eng- 
land, whence we are called Protestants, and the Anabaptists 
and Separatists and Sectaries on the other hand." 

Again, in another place, speaking of superstition, he 
said: "The causes of superstition are pleasing and sensual 
rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical 
holiness, over-great reverence of traditions which can not 
but load the church; the stratagems of prelates for their 
own ambition and lucre, and the favoring too much of good 
intentions which openeth the gates to conceits and novel- 
ties." 

In writing of judicature, he said that "Judges ought to 
remember that their office is Jus dicere and not Jus dare; 
to interpret law and not to make law or give law. Else 
will it be like the authority claimed by the Church of 
Rome, which, under pretext of exposition of Scripture, 
doth not stick to add and alter; and to pronounce that 



168 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

which they do not find, and by show of antiquity, to in- 
troduce novelty." 

The reader, I trust, will pardon a little moralizing here. 
What Bacon wrote nearly three centuries ago about super- 
stition, as elaborated in his essays, finds its verification in 
the strong hold which superstition has upon the minds of 
the inhabitants of the Empire of Russia, who are domi- 
nated by the Greek Church. This subjection to supersti- 
tion is illustrated in the preparation of the Russians for 
and their conduct of the war with Japan. While the 
Japanese rely for success in the warfare now waging between 
Japan and Russia upon the best, the very best war material 
for the army and navy, the best weapons, the best food and 
clothing and the best training for their soldiers and offi- 
cers, the superstitious Russians greatly rely upon sacred 
relics, so-called — as, for instance, the toe of St. Serge, 
pictures and icons (fabled to have supernatural powers) 
to win victories for them. It is no wonder that men be- 
come atheists when they find that the church (using the 
term in its general sense, so as to embrace all Christian 
bodies excepting the peace-loving Society of Friends), 
which claims to have Christ, the preacher and Prince of 
Peace, as its founder and head, aids and abets belligerent 
rulers and warring nations in their reckless and bloody 
contests for supremacy. Men of sense and discernment 
know that there is a God of Peace and Good-will to all 
men, and they also know that there is no God of Battles, 
unless it be the devil, and that until a court of arbitrament 
between nations, with power to make and enforce its decrees 
is established, the divinity which will settle international 
controversies is not a relic nor a painting nor a saint's 
picture, nor an icon nor even a prayer, but the scientific 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR PROTESTANTS. 169 

collocation of the best-trained fighters under the leader- 
ship of the most skillful generals, with the most approved 
weapons, light and heavy, which military ingenuity can 
invent and supply as aganst a power inferior in these 
equipments. 

Frederick of Prussia said that he always found the 
God of Battles to be on the side of the strongest and best- 
equipped regiments. 

When Croesus, in his ostentation, exhibited his great 
stores of gold to Solon, that wise lawgiver said to him: 
"Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, 
he will be master of all the gold." 

Sensible men also know that such a court of final arbi- 
trament could be firmly and permanently established if 
the Church of God, following the example of the despised 
Quakers, would steadfastly range itself on the side of 
everlasting peace between nations. 

Charles Sumner, in his admirable oration on the "True 
Grandeur of Nations," thus speaks of the tremendous in- 
fluence which war, though condemned by Christ, has de- 
rived from the church : 

"The Christian Church, after the first centuries of its 
existence, failed to discern the peculiar spiritual beauty of 
the faith which it professed. Like Constantine, it found 
new incentives to war in the religion of peace ; and such has 
been its character — let it be said fearlessly — even to our own 
day. The Pope of Rome, the asserted head of the Church, 
the Vicegerent of Christ on earth, whose seal is a fisherman, 
on whose banner is a lamb before the holy cross, assumed 
the command of armies, often mingling the thunders of 
battle with those of the Vatican. The dagger which pro- 
jected from the sacred vestments of the Archbishop de 



170 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Retz, as he appeared in the streets of Paris, was called 
by the people 'the Archbishop's Prayer Book.' We read 
of mitred prelates in armour of proof, and seem still to 
catch the jingle of the golden spurs of the bishops in the 
streets of Cologne. The sword of knighthood was con- 
secrated by the church; and priests were often the expert 
masters in military exercises." 

To William Penn belongs the distinction, destined to 
brighten as men advance in virtue, of first in human his- 
tory establishing the law of love, as a rule of conduct for 
the intercourse of nations. 

A great man, worthy of the mantle of Penn, the ven- 
erable philanthropist Clarkson, in his life of the founder 
of Pennsylvania, says: "The Pennsylvanians became 
armed, though without arms; they became strong, though 
without strength; they became safe, without the ordi- 
nary means of safety. This pattern of a Christian Com- 
monwealth never fails to arrest the admiration of all who 
contemplate its beauties. It drew an epigram of eulogy 
from the caustic pen of Voltaire, and has been fondly 
painted by many virtuous historians. Every ingenuous 
soul in our day offers his willing tribute to those celestial 
graces of justice and humanity, by the side of which the 
flinty hardness of the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock seems 
earthly and coarse." 

The true Shakespeare, speaking in the same human- 
itarian and Christian spirit, causes Westmoreland, in 
Act 4, Scene 1, of Second Henry the Fourth, to rebuke the 
martial Archbishop of York in the following language: 

" You, lord archbishop, 
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain' d, 
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch' d, 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OF PROTESTANTS. 171 

Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor' d, 

Whose white investments figure innocence, 

The dove and very blessed spirit of peace, 

Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself 

Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace, 

Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war?" 

Returning to the question of Shaksper's religious belief, 
a reference to the list of competent and learned play- 
writers who were contemporary with Shaksper will show 
that they were all Protestants, some of them being bigoted 
Protestants. 

It may be remarked in this connection that the play 
of Sir John Oldcastle, which was written by four drama- 
tists, Anthony Monday, Michael Drayton, Robert Wilson, 
and Richard Hathaway, and which was published in the 
name of William Shakespeare, was also a thoroughly 
Protestant production. Monday was an intense and vin- 
dictive hater of the Church of Rome, and Drayton also 
was imbued with the principles of the English Reforma- 
tion. So, also, was Thomas Dekker. If Davies is to be 
trusted, the ignorant William Shaksper was a Roman 
Catholic. While Davies gives no reason for his state- 
ment, it would be natural that the uneducated son of an 
uneducated man would adopt and live and die in the 
faith of his parents, and it is an undisputed fact that John 
Shaksper, the father, was a Roman Catholic. 

Halliwell-Phillips, in his second volume of the " Outlines 
of the Life of Shaksper," page 397, says that before Sep- 
tember, 1592, the name of John Shaksper (William's 
father) was included in a list of recusants who were pre- 
sented for not coming monthly to church according to the 
laws of her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth; and in idem, Vol. 



172 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

I, page 264, he says that "there is no doubt that John 
Shaksper nourished all the while a latent attachment to 
the old religion, and although like most unconverted non- 
conformists of ordinary discretion who were exposed 
to the inquisitorial tactics of the authorities, he may have 
attempted to conceal his views even from the members of 
his own household; j^et still, however determinately he 
may have refrained from giving them expression, it 
generally happens in such cases that a wave from 
the religious spirit of a parent will imperceptibly reach 
the hearts of his children and exercise more or less in- 
fluence on their perceptions. And this last presump- 
tion is an important consideration in assessing the degree 
of credit to be given to the earliest notice that has come 
down to us respecting the character of Shaksper's own 
belief, the assertion of Davies that 'he died a Papist.' 
That this was the local tradition in the latter part of the 
Seventeenth Century does not admit of rational question. 
If Jie statement had emanated from a man like Prynne 
addressing fanatics, whose hatred of a stage-player would, 
if possible, have been intensified by the knowledge that he 
was a Romanist, then, indeed, a legitimate suspicion 
might have been entertained of the narrator's integrity; 
but here we have the testimony of a sober clergyman, who 
could have no conceivable motive for deception in what 
is obviously the casual note of a provincial hearsay." 
Phillips, in the foregoing, alludes to the statement of the 
Reverend Richard Davies, made in the year 1685, that 
Shaksper was a Roman Catholic. 

Strong says, at page 11, in his book on "The Great 
Poets and their Theology": "In the plays there is no 
trace of Mariolatry nor of dependence for salvation upon 



WRITTEN BY A PROTESTANT OR PROTESTANTS. 173 

ritual or ceremony. Yet Shakespeare is as devoid of 
Puritanism as he is of Romish superstition. In an age of 
much clerical corruption, he never rails at the clergy. 
While he has some most ungodly prelates, his priests are 
all a credit to their calling. None of his characters are 
disseminators of skepticism. I can not explain all this, 
except by supposing that Shakespeare was himself a be- 
liever. Though he was not a theological dogmatist nor 
an ecclesiastical partisan, he was unerringly assured of 
the fundamental verities of the Christian scheme. Shake- 
speare had dug down through superficial formulas to the 
bed-rock of Christian doctrine. He held the truths which 
belong in common to all ages of the church. If any deny 
the personality of God, or the divinity of Christ, they 
have a controversy with Shakespeare. If any think it 
irrational to believe in man's depravity, guilt and need of 
supernatural redemption, they must also be prepared to 
say that Shakespeare did not understand human nature." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SHAKSPER, IF LEARNED, COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN 
THE PLAYS. 

"Men of few words are the best men." 

— Henry V, iii, 2. 

When I assert that William Shaksper, even if a very- 
learned man, could not have written the plays, I mean by 
that assertion that no one man, however gifted with edu- 
cation and talent, could by any possibility have written 
the plays. I assert the same as to the scholarly Bacon, 
rare Ben Jonson, or any other writer of the period during 
which the plays were written. I do not expect to con- 
vince by my reasons for this assertion any reader who 
believes that William Shaksper from the crown of his head 
to the soles of his feet was divine and not in the roll of 
common mortals. Being one of those who believe with 
Lafeu, in All's Well that Ends Well, Act 2, Scene 3, that 
since the Apostolic days "all miracles are past," I weigh 
this Shaksper intellectually as other men must be weighed, 
and I will apply to him the test of fact. 

I support my assertion by two infallible propositions, 
one being the sequence of the other. The first, which I 
will elaborate in this chapter, is that no one man in the 
Sixteenth Century, or in any century before or since, leaving 
out the God-man, our Savior, could use as many words as 
are found in the plays, and the second proposition is that 
an examination of the plays in the crucial manner to be 
hereafter explained shows that three men at the very 
least participated in the preparation and composition of 



SHAKSPER COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE PLAYS. 175 

the plays. I may say in passing that the object of this 
crucial test applied by me was to find the real Shakespeare 
— the real revisionist — and not to pick out all the writers, 
good and bad, who may have placed in the plays an act 
or acts, or part of an act here or part of a scene there. 

Upon a careful examination and study of the plays, I 
have found what the diligence of others has also estab- 
lished and verified, that they contain over twenty-one thou- 
sand words, leaving out, too, in this computation, the 
changes of particular words caused by number, case, per- 
son, gender, and tense. Let the reader keep the fore- 
going fact in mind. Now, what is and always has been 
man's or woman's word limit? A common farm laborer 
will not, during his whole lifetime, use over five hundred 
words. A business man, having what is called an average 
education, either at high school or college, will not use 
over three thousand words. Such voluminous and learned 
writers as Scott or Thackeray or Dickens were, and as 
Lew Wallace and Kipling are, did not and do not use even 
five thousand words. John Milton, according to the best 
authorities, surpassed all other writers as to word use by 
stretching the number to seven thousand. No writer, 
unless it be Michael Drayton, who was a great word-coiner, 
has ever exceeded Milton in the use of words. If Dray- 
ton's works were readily accessible to scholars, it would 
be found that he was primus inter pares as a maker of words. 

Presumptively, therefore, if the writers of the plays 
were as prolific in words as Milton was, there were three 
of them at least and each one must have used seven thou- 
sand words entirely different from the other two. If 
judged by the Thackeray standard, there were not less 
than four of them, unless we accept the absurd theory 



176 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

that if one man wrote them all, thereby using twenty-one 
thousand words, he must have been miraculously en- 
dowed. Dr. Holmes destroys that theory when he de- 
clares that " school or no school, without books and studies, 
we know that learning is impossible." And Bulwer finely 
satirizes the believers in genius without education when 
he says: "A problem in astronomy or a knotty passage 
in the fathers are all riddles, with which application has 
nothing to do. One's mother wit is a precious sort of 
necromancy which can pierce every mystery at first sight." 
Possibly the believers in the divine Shaksper afflatus base 
their theory upon Dogberry's charge to neighbor Sea- 
cole, as found in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 3, Scene 3, 
"God hath blessed you with a good name; to be a well- 
favored man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read 
comes by nature." 

The surrounding facts support my position that one 
man could not have written the plays, and justify the 
reader in believing that plays produced in the Elizabethan 
era, generally speaking, were the work of collaborators. 
Henslowe's Diary, heretofore referred to in Chapter III, 
shows that plays were so composed. Every critic, every 
essayist, every student, and every commentator, however 
learned or prejudiced, must submit to Henslowe's author- 
ity. He was no guesser. What he wrote was truthful. 
Although unlearned and a speller who would rival Josh 
Billings in his best days, he jotted down cold facts. His 
Diary contains minute, truthful, and valuable information 
respecting the English drama in Shaksper's time. It 
contains the names of plays identical with or very similar 
to the titles of some of the Shakespeare plays; it nowhere 
mentions Shaksper's name ; it shows that the English drama- 



SHAKSPER COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE PLAYS. 177 

tists wrote plays and sold them outright for trifling sums 
to Henslowe; it shows that these plays thereafter became 
the property of Henslowe ; it shows that certain dramatists 
were employed and paid by Henslowe to revise and dress 
the popular plays so purchased and adapt them to suit 
the fastidious taste of the frequenters of the theatre; and 
it also clearly shows that the principal plays were com- 
posed hurriedly by collaborators — two, three, four, five, 
and even six playwriters — -who, after they had received 
their pay, presumably cared nothing more for their pro- 
ductions. Such collaboration, when applied to the Shake- 
speare plays, accounts for the great number of words in 
the plays. The fact of collaboration is also supported by an 
examination of the style of the plays and the peculiar 
phrases and turns of expression, differing in the several 
plays. 

It is not necessary to give the reader here any opinion 
of mine on this point. He can not take up the work of 
any learned editor or commentator, who believed or be- 
lieves that the Shakespeare plays were composed by 
William Shaksper, without speedily ascertaining that they, 
one and all, when analyzing the plays, ascribe their com- 
position in part to several poets. For instance, Troilus 
and Cressida, some affirm, is the creation of two poets. 
Very many of them deny that Titus Andronicus was 
written by Shaksper at all. " Timon of Athens," says 
Fleay, "contains much matter from another hand." 
Henry the Eighth, they say, was written chiefly by 
Fletcher and Massinger, Shakespeare's share in it being 
only three scenes in acts one and two. A furious con- 
troversy, which has never yet been settled, has raged 
between the commentators headed bv Mai one on one side 



178 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

and Johnson and Steevens on the other, as to the parties 
who composed First, Second and Third Henry the Sixth. 
With these controversies we need not now concern our- 
selves. I refer to them now to support and fortify my 
position that it was not in the ability and power of one 
man, however learned, to be . the author of plays con- 
taining over twenty-one thousand separate words. 

That the plays were composed by collaboration is also 
supported by another fact which has faced the com- 
mentators and caused them to foolishly advance beyond 
the region of common sense and make of their idol a 
quasi demi-god. To fill the place of a sole author, they 
discovered that he must have been a lawyer, or thoroughly 
familiar with law terms and legal principles. He must 
have been a physician or an adept in medical science. He 
must have been a theologian or a student of the Bible, 
conversant with biblical words and phrases. He must 
have been more or less familiar with entomology, geology, 
botany, archery, and, at the very least, he must have been 
a student of philosophy. All these gifts the commen- 
tators have labored to endow their idol, William Shaksper, 
with, in order to account for the learning on these subjects 
which irradiates and dignifies the plays. 

But when in truth and in fact it is clear that originally 
the plays were created by several persons, all the diffi- 
culties vanish. The use of so many words is naturally 
explained. The differences in style and methods of 
expression are properly accounted for, and there is room 
enough in the glorious company of the poets to account 
for all the knowledge — legal, medical, scientific, theological, 
specific, or general — that has hitherto bothered the brains 
of the admirers of the Shakespeare plays in their attempts 



SHAKSPER COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE PLAYS. 179 

to palm them upon the public as the offspring of one 
man. 

The fact of collaboration is also shown by the labored 
attempts of the learned commentators to account for the 
diversity of the style of the plays by ascribing their com- 
position to different periods in Shaksper's life. One 
period, imagined — or rather invented — by them, is his comic 
period; another is his tragic period, and still another is 
his historic period. When he got into one of these periods 
he had to remain there, according to their theory, until 
the passage of that period. These periods are set up by 
these commentators to explain the inequalities and irregu- 
larities of some of the plays, since, when he was in the 
comic period, he could not get out of it and do justice to 
the tragedy which the theatre-goers would demand of him. 

Lest any reader should think that I am doing the com- 
mentators injustice in my statement of their real views 
as to the authorship, I will give their opinions briefly, 
quoting from an excellent authority, Gulien C. Verplanck, 
a learned man, who honestly believed in the Shaksper 
theory. These statements are from the introductory 
remarks at the beginning of each play in Verplanck' s 
Shakespeare. 

Referring to the Two Gentlemen of Verona, he says 
that Hanmer and Upton pronounced with great confi- 
dence that he, Shaksper, could have had no other hand 
in it than enlivening with some speeches and lines, thrown 
in here and there, the production of some inferior dramatist. 

In All's Well that Ends Well, Coleridge pointed out two 
distinct styles, not only of thought, but of expression; 
and Professor Tieck, at a later date, adopted and enforced 
the same belief. 



180 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

As to Troilus and Cressida, Dryden said that the 
author began it with some fire, but that he grew weary of 
his task, and the latter part of the tragedy is nothing but 
a confusion of drums, trumpets, excursions, and alarms. 

As to Henry the Eighth, the theory is maintained by 
Malone, Steevens, and others that the prologue, parts of 
Cranmer's speech in the last scene, and possibly some other 
passages, were written by Ben Jonson. 

A majority of the later English critics have adopted or 
incline to an hypothesis brought out by Malone over 
sixty years ago, that the first part of King Henry the 
Sixth, as it now appears (of which no quarto copy is 
extant), was the entire or nearly the entire production of 
some unknown ancient dramatist. Malone's opinion is 
founded mainly, as relates to the first part, upon the 
dissimilarity of versification and phraseology to that of 
Shakespeare, and its resemblance in those things to the 
writings of Greene and Peele, and upon the classical 
allusions and Latin quotations, too learned and too abun- 
dant for the unlettered Shaksper. 

Verplanck, speaking for himself, says, "In style and 
versification, Richard the Third has much of the cast of 
those portions of Henry the Sixth denied to be his." 

As to Hamlet, he says that all the circumstances lead 
to the belief that Hamlet was the work of several different 
periods of the poet's life. 

The most remarkable comment is made upon the play 
of Pericles. It is a circumstance to be noted that this 
play did not appear in the Folio of 1623. Ben Jonson 
called it a mouldy tale made up of scraps out of every 
dish. Steevens said that the drama of Pericles " contains 
no discrimination of manners (except in the comic dia- 



SHAKSPER COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE PLAYS. 181 

logue), very few traces of original thought, and is evidently 
destitute of that intelligence and useful knowledge that 
pervades even the meanest of Shakespeare's undisputed 
performances." In this view Malone finally acquiesced. 

Hallam says that "from the poverty and bad manage- 
ment of the fable, the want of effective and distinguish- 
able character, and the general feebleness of the tragedy 
as a whole, I shall not believe the structure to have been 
Shakespeare's. The play is full of evident marks of an 
inferior hand." 

Macbeth contains, as all the commentators agree, a 
part of Middleton's "Witch." 

But it is against Titus Andronicus that the assaults of 
the host of commentators are particularly directed. 
Verplanck says that a great majority of the English 
Shakespearean editors, commentators, and critics, includ- 
ing some of the very highest names in literature, have 
concurred in rejecting this bloody and repulsive tragedy 
as wholly unworthy of Shakespeare, and therefore errone- 
ously ascribed to him. 

There is another very strong and convincing reason in 
favor of the fact of collaboration in the Shakespeare plays. 
I refer to the difference, which can not have escaped the 
vigilant eyes of the commentators, in the pronunciation 
or accentuation of words, and the difference also in names 
as applied to sex or to position in the ranks of opposing 
factions. In Cymbeline, Posthumus is rightly and wrongly 
pronounced, and Arviragus meets with similar treatment. 
Hecate is made a word of two and sometimes three sylla- 
bles. In the Taming of the Shrew, Baptista is a man, 
while in Hamlet, Baptista is characterized as a woman, 
wife of Gonzago. In the Merchant of Venice, the distance 



182 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

between Venice and Belmont is changed, and in the Two 
Gentlemen of Verona, Milan and Verona are treated as 
seaport towns. 

In Fleay's " Life and Works of Shakespeare," the 
author notes that there are discrepancies between Richard 
III and 3 Henry VI, in this, that Gray, in act one, scene 
three of the first-named play, is depicted as fighting for 
the Lancastrians, whereas in the second he is repre- 
sented as a Yorkist, a fact which shows a different hand 
in the two plays. 

It is amusing to read Verplanck's reflection. "The 
glorious uncertainty of the law," he says, " has been exem- 
plified and commemorated in a large and closely printed 
volume, containing nothing but the mere title of legal 
decisions, once acknowledged to be law, and since reversed 
or contradicted as 'cases overruled, doubted, or denied.' 
The decisions of the critical tribunals would furnish 
material for a much larger work. And Shakespeare 
criticism by itself would supply an ample record of varying 
or overruled judgments." 

In the Shakespeare case, evil has been caused by two 
errors — the first, in the foolish belief that an ignorant 
man could write plays at all, and second, in the belief, 
as foolish and baseless as the first, that one man could 
be the sole composer of works containing over twenty 
thousand different words. 

A late author, Webb, in his summary of evidence, 
presents the views of the commentators who ask the 
general reader to believe in the unity of Shakespeare, 
showing thereby that even they have no confidence in the 
theory. At page 20 of his chapter entitled "The Unity 
of Shakespeare," he says: 



SHAKSPER COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE PLAYS. 183 

"To the Shakespearean scholars of the day, the plays 
of Shakespeare, like the Iliad of Homer, are a noise of 
many waters. Mr. Swinburne tells us that no scholar 
believes in the single authorship of Andronicus; that no 
scholar questions the part taken by 'some hireling or 
journeyman' in Timon, and that 'few probably would 
refuse to admit a doubt of the total authenticity or 
uniform workmanship of the Taming of the Shrew.' A 
host of experts, following in the footsteps of Malone, 
assert that the Second and Third parts of King Henry 
the Sixth include the work of Marlowe. The writers in 
the Henry Irving Shakespeare ascribe the last act of 
Troilus and Cressida to Dekker. Mr. Swinburne com- 
plains that the most characteristic portion of Macbeth 
has been attributed to Middleton. Mr. Phillips contends 
that the Merry Wives of Windsor has been interpolated 
by a botcher. Mr. Lee is as iconoclastic as the rest. 
Intolerant as he is of doubt as to the identity of Shake- 
speare, he, too, denies his unity. To him, Shakespeare is 
a noun of multitude, signifying many. He attributes 
one of the most striking scenes in Macbeth to a hack of 
the theatre; he suggests that the third and fifth acts of 
Timon were the work of a colleague with whom Shake- 
speare worked in collaboration; he holds that the vision 
of Posthumus in Cymbeline is a piece of pitiful mummery, 
which must have been supplied by another hand; and 
boldly carrying the judgment of Solomon into execution, 
he cuts the body of Henry the Eighth in two, and hands 
one half of it to Shakespeare and the other half to Fletcher. 
"As the work of Shakespeare is said to have been 
interpolated by others, so the work of others is said to 
have been appropriated by Shakespeare. The Hamlet 



184 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

mentioned by Nash in 1589 is attributed by Mr. Lee to 
Kyd; the King John which was published in 1590 is 
regarded by Mr. Marshall as an old play by an unknown 
writer; the Henry the Sixth, mentioned by Henslowe as 
performed in 1591, is described by Mr. Marshall as an old 
play which Shakespeare found at the theatre and slightly 
altered; the First part of the Contention, which was 
published in 1594, and the True Tragedy of Richard 
Duke of York, which was published in 1595, Mr. Boas 
tells us, are considered by eminent critics as plays in the 
composition of which Shakespeare took no part; and the 
Taming of a Shrew, which was published in 1594, is 
regarded by Mr. Swinburne as the work of an author as 
nameless as the deed of the witches in Macbeth. And 
yet Mr. Lee admits that Shakespeare drew largely on the 
Hamlet which he has attributed to Kyd; Mr. Marshall 
acknowledges that Shakespeare was indebted for the 
materials of his play to the King John of the unknown 
writer; the old play, Henry the Sixth, appears in the 
Folio as the work of Shakespeare; Mr. Boas confesses 
that Shakespeare transferred some three thousand two 
hundred and fifty lines, with little or no alteration, from 
the Contention and the True Tragedy to his Lancastrian 
Trilogy; and Mr. Swinburne recognizes the fact that in 
the Taming of the Shrew all the force and humor, alike 
of character and situation, belong to Shakespeare's eclipsed 
and forlorn precursor; that he tempered and enriched 
everything in his precursor's play, but in reality he 
added nothing." 

All these statements and opinions of commentators 
tend to show that it is absolutely silly and absurd to 
credit one man with the authorship of the Shakespeare 



SHAKSPER COULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN THE PLAYS. 185 

plays. If nothing else would be a bar, the fact that 
man's capacity in the use of words is limited to less than 
ten thousand words is a sufficient answer to the Shaksper 
claim or the Baconian claim or the claim for any other 
individual poet to the composition of the plays. The 
solution of the question of the true authorship is to be 
found in collaboration as to a majority of the plays, and 
the original composition of the play was very often supple- 
mented by a revision. The reader will find that Henry 
the Fifth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and the Merry 
Wives of Windsor were so revised. 

In the first edition of Henry the Fifth there were only 
eighteen hundred lines. Some one revised it before the 
Folio of 1623 was issued, by the addition of seventeen 
hundred more lines. In his notice of the revision of that 
play, Knight says, "In this elaboration the old materials 
are very carefully used up; but they are so thoroughly 
refitted and dovetailed with what is new that the opera- 
tion can only be compared to the work of a skillful archi- 
tect, who having an ancient mansion to enlarge and 
beautify with a strict regard to its original character, 
preserves every feature of the structure under other 
combinations, with such marvelous skill that no unity of 
principle is violated; and the whole has the effect of a 
restoration in which the new and the old are undistin- 
guishable." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE LEARNING OF THE AUTHOR OR AUTHORS OF THE POEMS 
AND PLAYS. 

"I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban." 

—King Lear, iii, 4. 

Was the author of the Shakespeare plays and poems a 
man of great or little learning? Or if there were two or 
more authors, were they learned or unlearned? Every 
careful reader is entitled to an opinion of his own on that 
point, without the aid of critics or commentators; and I 
venture to say that the person who will read the Shake- 
speare plays and poems without consulting the commen- 
tators will call the writer or writers of them very learned 
unless he believes that he or they were gifted with super- 
natural powers. Let me make a broader assertion. If 
the poems of Venus and Adonis and Tarquin and Lucrece 
and the plays we are considering (divested of all reference 
to William Shaksper) could be put into the hands of a 
thorough scholar who had never before seen them or heard 
either of them or their reputed author, and if he were 
asked to read them carefully, and after such reading to 
give an opinion as to whether the chief composer of the 
plays and poems was a learned or an unlearned man, I 
am quite sure that he would say that the author of the 
poems and plays was a very learned person, and I think 
that my readers will agree with me. 

Nevertheless, if the disinterested reader whom I have 
selected as above, after reading the poems and plays 
without previously knowing anything whatever of the life- 



THE LEARNING OF THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 187 

history of William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon, the 
reputed author, will seek for a confirmation of his opinion 
among the writings of the essayists and commentators, 
he will be sorely bewildered. 

Ben Johnson said of the reputed writer of the plays, 
" Though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek," and 
Digges, a contemporary, said, "Nature only helped him." 
Denham assures us that "all he had was from old mother 
wit." Milton talks of his "Native wood notes wild." 
Dryden said that "he wanted not the spectacle of books 
to read nature." Fuller, on whom the Shaksperites rely, 
declares positively that "his learning was very little. 
Nature was all the art used upon him, as he himself, if 
alive, would confess." The learned Dr. Farmer wrote a 
book to show that Shaksper was not a learned man. 
Langbaine said that " he was as much a stranger to French 
as Latin." Hume, in his "History of England," speaks of 
Shaksper as an author "without any instruction either 
from the world or from books." Simpson wrote that "the 
constant criticism which his contemporaries from Greene 
to Ben Jonson passed on him was that he was ignorant 
of language and no scholar." Richard Grant White called 
him "the untaught son of a Stratford yeoman," while 
Alexander Pope said that "he is the only author that 
gives ground for a new opinion that the philosopher and 
even the man of the world may be born as well as the 
poet." John Dennis declared that "he who allows 
Shakespeare had learning and a familiar acquaintance 
with the ancients, ought to be looked upon as a detractor 
from the glory of Great Britain." Bentham stated in his 
book on English schools and churches, published about 
the year 1686, that " the learning of Shaksper was very 



188 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

little, and therefore it is more a matter for wonder that 
he should be a very excellent poet." 

On the other hand, Mary Cowden Clark says that " the 
Venus and Adonis bears palpable tokens of college educa- 
tion and predilection, both in story and treatment." The 
erudite Reed pronounces it "a product of the highest 
culture, written throughout in the purest, most elegant 
and scholarly English of that day." Gildon, the well- 
known editor of the poem, said " that the man who doubts 
of the learning of Shakespeare hath none of his own." 
Mr. Theobald is "very unwilling to allow him so poor a 
scholar as many have labored to represent him." Mr. 
Upton wonders "with what kind of reasoning any one 
could be so far imposed upon as to imagine that Shake- 
speare had no learning." Dr. Grey declared that "Shake- 
speare's knowledge in the Greek and Latin tongues can 
not reasonably be questioned." Holmes says that "the 
writer of the plays was a classical scholar." Rowe found 
traces in him of the Electra of Sophocles; Coleman, of 
Ovid; Pope, of Dares Phrygius and other Greek authors; 
Farmer, of Horace and Virgil; Malone, of Lucretius, 
Statius, Catullus, Seneca, Sophocles, and Euripides; 
Steevens, of Plautus ; Knight, of the Antigone of Sophocles ; 
and White of the Alcestis of Euripides. 

Donnelly unhesitatingly affirmed that "the author of 
the plays was unquestionably a profound scholar and a 
most laborious student. He had read in their own tongues 
all the great and some of the obscure writers of antiquity; 
he was familiar with the languages of the principal nations 
of Europe; his mind had compassed all the learning of 
his time and of preceding ages; he had pored over the 
pages of French and Italian novelists; he had read the 



THE LEARNING OF THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 189 

philosophical utterances of the great thinkers of Greece 
and Rome; and he had closely considered the narrations 
of the explorers who were laying bare the secrets of new 
islands and continents. It has been justly said that the 
plays could not have been written without a library, and 
can not to-day be properly studied without one. To their 
proper elucidation, the learning of the whole world is 
necessary. Goethe says of the writer of the plays, 'he 
drew a sponge over the table of human knowledge.'" 
Books after books have been written to show that the 
writer of the plays excelled in a knowledge of astronomy, 
botany, chemistry, entomology, geology, medicine, law, 
theology, and philosophy. "The man who wrote these 
plays made no mistakes as to his law," says Lord Chief 
Justice Campbell. He was skilled in medicine and surgery, 
according to Bucknill in his work on Shakespeare's medical 
knowledge. He knew about the circulation of the blood 
before Harvey. He knew about the laws of gravitation 
before Newton. "He was the prophet of geology," says 
Fullom. He was an accurate botanist. He was a natural- 
ist and entomologist, according to Patterson. He was a 
profound biblical student, according to Wadsworth and 
Vincent. He was deeply learned in history and mythol- 
ogy; and finance was to him as an unsealed book. And 
above all, he was a very practical philosopher. All these 
specialties, if these writers are to be trusted, must have 
required much study, much aptitude and very much 
training. 

I think, and I believe that the reader thinks and be- 
lieves with me, that the writer of the poems and the 
principal writer of the plays was a learned, a very learned 
person. 



190 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

In his " Myth," a book which ought to be read by every 
Shakespearean student, Morgan very strikingly calls atten- 
tion to the learning of the dramatist: ". . . there are two 
characteristics of the Shakespearean works which, under 
the calmest and most sternly judicial treatment to which 
they could possibly be subjected, are so prominent as to 
be beyond gainsay or neglect. These two characteristics 
are — 1. The encyclopaedic universality of their informa- 
tion as to matters of fact; and, 2. The scholarly refine- 
ment of the style displayed in them. Their claim to 
eloquence and beauty of expression, after all, is a question 
of taste; and we may conceive of whole peoples — as, for 
example, the Zulus or the Ashantees — impervious to any 
admiration for the Shakespearean plays on that account. 
But this familiarity with what, at their date, was the 
Past of history, and — up to that date — the closed book 
of past human discovery and research which we call 
Learning, is an open and indisputable fact; and the New 
Zealander who will sit on a broken arch of London Bridge 
and muse over the ruins of British civilization, if he carry 
his researches back to the Shakespearean literature, will be 
obliged to find that its writer was in perfect possession 
of the scholarship antecedent to his own date, and of the 
accumulated learning of the world down to his own actual 
day." 

Of the writer of the two poems and Midsummer 
Night's Dream, I can say with Emerson that "he sits 
above the hundred-handed play of his imagination, pen- 
sive and conscious." 

And because I so believe, I can not fit the man William 
Shaksper, as his life-history truly paints him, to the poetry 
which passes under his name. 



THE LEARNING OF THE AUTHOR OF THE PLAYS. 191 

When I read the true life-history of William Shaksper 
of Stratford-on-Avon, I find it, as O'Connor describes it, 
"a record unadorned by a single excellence or virtue. 
Before it, thoughtful men stand in utter perplexity. Hal- 
lam, an elegant and judicious mind, regards it with petu- 
lant disquietude. Guizot, a profound and penetrating 
intellect, notes it with a certain mystified curiosity. Cole- 
ridge recoils from it with anger and disgust, and declares 
that such a creature could not have written the drama. 
'Does God choose idiots to convey truths to man!' he 
cries with indignation. You would say that he glared at 
the indisputable biography, enraged that 'it does not 
offer one single point of correspondence, however small, 
with the spirit of the plays.' " 

When the disinterested reader who is desirous to find 
the real truth as to the life of William Shaksper, now 
buried under the accumulated rubbish of two centuries 
or more of conjecture and invention, has cleared away 
the disgusting mass, he must inevitably conclude that 
whether one man or several men wrote the plays, William 
Shaksper was too illiterate to have been such author or a 
participant in their composition. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE DIVERSE SPELLING OF THE NAMES. 

"Exceedingly well read, and profited 
In strange concealments." 

—First Henry IV, iii, 1. 

Before proceeding to an examination of the plays and 
poems, it may be profitable to the reader, in forming an 
opinion as to the authorship, to consider the fact that the 
man of Stratford-on-Avon never spelled his own name in 
the way the surname appeared on the title pages of the 
various publications, viz., Shake-speare, Shakespeare, and 
Shakspeare. If the reader should have "Smith" for a 
surname, and he should be written about as "Smythe," 
he would naturally and rightly presume that the person 
so writing was not very intimately acquainted with him. 
Benjamin Jonson was a voluminous writer of plays and 
poems, and yet no educated intimate friend ever wrote 
to him or about him as "Johnson," although the insertion 
of an "h" would have been a very pardonable mistake 
in the case of a stranger. I had to use, as to Jonson, the 
word "educated," for I find that the ignorant Henslowe 
wrote of him twice as follows: at page 80 of the Diary, 
" R'd of Bengemene Johnsones share as follows 28 of July 
1597," and at page 256 he wrote, "Lent unto Bengemyne 
Johnson," etc. Drayton's name was never written 
"Dreyton" or "Draton" by his associates; and no very 
intimate friend made any mistake as to Chapman, Chettle, 
Fletcher, Marston, or Middleton. If we should read com- 
mendations in verse or prose by contemporaries of Dryden, 
Cowper, Addison, Gladstone, Dickens, or Tennyson, and 



THE DIVERSE SPELLINGS OF THE NAME. 193 

the name of the commended writer should be spelled by 
the commender as "Driden," or "Couper," or "Adison," 
or "Gladestone," or "Dikkens," or "Tenison," while we 
might admire the commendatory verses, we should natur- 
ally presume and believe that the authors were not per- 
sonally acquainted with the men whom they praised, or 
if acquainted, not very familiarly. Any author, honestly 
desiring to eulogize a contemporary writer, living or dead, 
by means of a poem or prose writing, would be very care- 
ful to properly spell the name of the person to be eulogized. 
In this matter of the Shakespeare plays and poems, 
while it is not very important if William Shaksper of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon did not write them, to ascertain whether 
Shaksper or some one else was pointed at by other writers 
as Shakespeare or Shake-speare, yet the inquiry may 
serve as an aid in elucidating the truth as to their author- 
ship. Taking for granted, therefore, that the Shaksper 
of Stratford did not write the plays and poems, the reader 
should have before him the statements of writers of that 
era. And first in order comes Francis ' Meres, who, in 
1598, in his "Palladis Tamia," wrote as follows: "As 
Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy 
and tragedy among the Latines; so Shakespeare, among 
ye English, is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage. 
For comedy, witnes his Gentleme of Verona, his Errors, 
his Love's Labor's Lost, his Love's Labor's Wonne, his 
Midsummer Night's Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; 
for tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 
4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and 
Juliet." 

Thomas Heywood may be properly called next as a 
witness. He was not, like Ben Jonson, a man who would 



194 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

resort to flattery or fawning; neither would he be disposed 
to knowingly exalt an ignoramus to the position of a great 
poet, and this is what he wrote in his " Hierarchie of the 
Blessed Angells," published in 1635: 

" Mellifluous Shake-speare, whose enchanting quill 
Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will; 
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen 
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben. 
Fletcher and Webster, of that learned packe 
None of the mean'st, yet neither was but Jacke. 
Deckers but Tom, no May nor Middleton; 
And hee's now but Jacke Foord that once was John." 

It will be noticed by the reader that Heywood hyphen- 
ates the word we are investigating, so that it is written 
in his book as "Shake-speare." 

John Webster is the next witness, and this slow but 
surely great writer was not trying to deceive anybody 
when, in the year 1612, in his labored and careful intro- 
duction to the play of the "White Devil," he penned the 
following : 

"Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance; for mine 
own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of 
other men's worthy labours; especially of that full and 
heightened style of Master Chapman; the laboured and 
understanding works of Master Jonson; the no less worthy 
composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beau- 
mont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong 
last to be named), the right happy and copious industry 
of Master Shakespeare, Master Dekker, and Master Hey- 
wood; wishing what I write may be read by their light; 
protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgment, I 



THE DIVERSE SPELLINGS OF THE NAME. 195 

know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my 
own work, yet to most of theirs I dare (without flattery) 
fix that of Martial, 

' Non norunt haec monumenta mori.' " 

This introduction was slowly and dispassionately 
penned. There is no humor about it, nor is there any 
attempt in the composition to deceive or cajole the reader. 
He deservedly and truthfully lauds Chapman, Jonson, 
Beaumont, Fletcher, Dekker, Heywood, and with the two 
last named "the right happy and copious industry of 
Master Shakespeare." No attempt is made to use the 
name of this industrious Shakespeare for any purpose of 
gain ; and the compliment to all the poets named is unques- 
tionably written in sincerity. As in the matter of Hey- 
wood's allusion heretofore quoted, it will be noticed that 
he calls the writer "Shakespeare" not "Shaksper," and 
it is worthy of notice that Webster, like Heywood, entirely 
omits Michael Drayton. 

Let the reader now notice what is said of a poet Shake- 
speare by Michael Drayton himself. I quote from his 
elegy in the shape of a poem descriptive of poets and poesy 
to his most dearly beloved friend, Henry Reynolds : 

" Neat Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs, 
Had in him those brave translunary things 
That the first poets had, his raptures were 
All air and fire, which made his verses clear; 
For that fine madness still he did retain 
Which rightly should possess a poet's brain. 
And surely Nash, though he a proser were, 
A branch of laurel yet deserves to bear, 
Sharply satiric was he, and that way 



196 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

He went, since that his being to this clay 
Few have attempted, and I surely think 
Those words shall hardly be set down with ink 
Shall scorch and blast so as his could, where he 
Would inflict vengeance; and be it said of thee, 
Shakespeare, thou hadst as smooth a comic vein, 
Fitting the sock, and in thy natural brain 
As strong conception and as clear a rage, 
As any one that trafficked with the stage." 

It is evident that, unless Drayton was speaking of him- 
self in the way of an aside by using the expression "And 
be it said of thee," he was eulogizing a person who was 
called by the name of Shakespeare and recognized as a poet. 

Richard Barnfield also, in his " Remembrance of Some 
English Poets," published in 1598, mentions Shakespeare 
in the following poem which, for the reader's convenience, 
is here inserted in full : 

"Live Spenser in thy Fairy Queen; 
Whose like (for deep conceit) was never seen. 
Crowned mayst thou be, unto thy more renown, 
(As king of poets) with a laurel crown. 

And Daniel praised for thy sweet chaste verse, 
Whose fame is grav'd on Rosamond's black hearse; 
Still mayst thou live and still be honored, 
For that rare work, the White rose and the Red. 

And Drayton, whose well written tragedies, 
And sweet epistles soar thy fame to skies: 
Thy learned name is equal with the rest, 
Whose stately numbers are so well addrest. 

And Shakspear, thou whose honey-flowing verse, 
(Pleasing the world) thy praises doth contain, 



THE DIVERSE SPELLINGS OF THE NAME. 197 

Whose Venus and whose Lucrece (sweet and chaste) 
Thy name in fame's immortal book have plac'd 
Live ever you, at least in fame live ever; 
Well may the body die, but fame die never." 

The reading world is familiar with what Ben Jonson 
wrote of Shakespeare, as published in the Folio of 1623, 
but it is not so familiar with what Ben said of him in his 
Conversations with Drummond and his Discoveries. 
What he said to Drummond is as follows : 
"He said Shakspere wanted art, and sometimes sense, 
for, in one of his plays, he brought in a number of men, 
saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is 
no sea near by a hundred miles." 

What he wrote in his Discoveries, is as follows: 
" De Shakspere nostrat. — Augustus in Hat. — I remember, 
the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shak- 
speare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never 
blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had 
blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent 
speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their igno- 
rance, who chose that circumstance to commend their 
friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine 
own candor: for I loved the man, and do honor his mem- 
ory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) 
honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent 
phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein 
he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was neces- 
sary he should be stopped : Sufflaminandus erat, as Augus- 
tus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power, 
would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell 
into those things, could not escape laughter; as when he 
said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, ' Caesar, 



198 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

thou dost me wrong.' He replied, 'Caesar did never wrong 
but with just cause,' and such like; which were ridiculous. 
But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was 
ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." 
In this statement he asserted that Shakespeare wanted 
art and sometimes sense. To say that a man lacks sense 
is very uncomplimentary, but to say at one time that he 
lacked art and at another time, 

"Thy art, 
My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part, 
For though the poet's matter, nature be, 
His art doth give the fashion," 

is certainly very contradictory, and makes Jonson a very 
unreliable eulogist. Perhaps I may be wrong, but I have 
sometimes wondered whether it was really meant for a 
compliment to call Shaksper a swan — "The sweet swan 
of Avon." A swan never sings at all and it is only in the 
imagination of poets that he sings in his dying hours. 
Thus in Othello, Act 5, Scene 2, Emilia says, "I will play 
the swan and die in music." And in the Merchant of 
Venice, Act 3, Scene 2, Portia says, "He makes a swan- 
like end, fading in music." 

However that may be, the reader who will examine 
the First Folio will note that Jonson spells the name of the 
reputed poet as "Shakespeare." It is also so spelled in 
the dedication and preface of that book. Hugh Holland 
spells it as "Shakespeare." Leonard Digges spells it as 
"Shakespeare" and " Shake-speare, " and I. M. calls him 
"Shake-speare." 

While of course it is not very important in the attempt 
at an elucidation of the authorship of the Shakespeare 



THE DIVERSE SPELLINGS OF THE NAME. 199 

plays that the questions hereinafter propounded should be 
satisfactorily answered, yet I have marshaled the state- 
ments of these great contemporary dramatists so that the 
reader will be aided to a reasonable conclusion as to who 
or what was meant by the constant use, by printers, of 
the word "Shakespeare" as the name of a play -writer. 
And the several questions which I propound are these: 

If it be taken for granted, as a proved and accepted 
fact, that William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon, by 
reason of his ignorance, did not and could not write the 
plays attributed to him, several questions confront the 
reader, and the first one is: Was there in England during 
the years from 1593 to 1616, and later, a poet who was . 
familiarly called and recognized as William Shakespeare 
or Shake-speare? There is nothing unusual about this. 
It is so in every nation where writers abound. The 
English Winston Churchill has just done the same to avoid 
confusion with the American Churchill. I copy the follow- 
ing from a leading newspaper: "Winston Churchill, the 
son of Lady Randolph Churchill, in order to avoid having 
his books confused with those of Winston Churchill, the 
American, and author of 'Richard Carvel,' will, in future, 
have his name on title pages read: 'Winston Spencer- 
Churchill.'" 

Again, secondly, if it be taken for granted as a proved 
and accepted fact, that William Shaksper of Stratford-on- 
Avon, by reason of his ignorance, did not and could not 
write the plays now attributed to him, was there in Eng- 
land during the period above named, a concealed poet, 
who wrote or revised the plays in part or all, or who 
inserted in all or in a part of them the magnificent and 
sparkling poetical gems, culled and gathered from art, 



200 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

from nature, from history, from philosophy, from science, 
and from ancient lore, which have always captivated and 
enchanted and will forever captivate and enchant the 
reading world? 

Again, if the inability of Shaksper, as aforesaid, be 
taken for granted as a proved and accepted fact, was the 
appellation "William Shakespeare" merely assumed and 
used by the printers and publishers, with or without 
special reference to the Stratford man? 

My conjecture is, and it is only a conjecture, that the 
second question should be answered in the affirmative, 
and that this concealed writer, whoever he was, used 
William Shaksper as his mask, and that whether this con- 
cealed poet wrote all or a part only of the plays, he induced 
Shaksper to appear as the author or reviser and to claim 
and obtain all the credit arising from the production and 
popularity of the plays. To safely act such a part, Shak- 
sper must have been very reserved and distant, and this 
may account for the unfamiliarity of writers with his name. 

I have purposely called this chapter one of conjecture, 
because there are no fixed facts which can be relied upon 
to answer the foregoing questions satisfactorily. I was 
at one time surprised to find that such an anagram as 
"Thomas Dekker's Speaker," would directly lead to the 
words "Shakespeare's Tom Dekker," but the reader and 
I are not trusting to nor relying upon anagrams or ciphers, 
but cold facts. 

Some propositions may be stated here to which I think 
every intelligent and disinterested reader will give his 
assent. 

If Francis Bacon wrote any or part of any of the Shake- 
speare plays, so called, it was necessary that the fact of 



THE DIVERSE SPELLINGS OF THE NAME. 201 

his authorship should be concealed as much as possible 
from the play-writers and actors who wrote for or were 
employed by the theatrical managers of that era, except 
such favored and trusted ones as Bacon could rely upon. 
If confided to the play-writers or actors generally, it would 
have soon been known to the Court and also in the city 
of London and throughout England. 

Again, if Francis Bacon was a concealed dramatist as 
well as a concealed poet, and if he wrote any or part of 
the plays above specified, and if he induced William 
Shaksper, an ignorant man, to father them as his own, 
then, unless Shaksper kept aloof, so far as social inter- 
course was concerned, from the band of tragic and comic 
writers, such as Drayton, Dekker, Chettle, Middleton, 
and others who flourished at that time, his ignorance 
would have been, sooner or later, made manifest to them 
or some of them, and such commendatory expressions, 
as I have above set out, would never have been written. 

Perhaps the last proposition could be better put thus: 
If Shaksper, an ignorant person, presented to the public, 
as his own, plays which Bacon wrote, then Shaksper's 
fraudulent conduct would presumably have become known 
to the play writers above specified or some of them, if he 
associated with them familiarly. Of course, the reader is 
acquainted with Fuller's fancy picture of Shaksper and 
Ben Jonson at the Mitre Tavern. I call it a picture of 
fancy, because Fuller was only eight years old when 
Shaksper died, and the use of the word "behold" shows 
that he was romancing. This is what he said in 1662 : 

"Many were the wit-combats betwixt him and Ben 
Jonson; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon 
and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the for- 



202 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

mer, was built far higher in learning; solid but slow in 
performance. Shakspeare, with the English man-of-war, 
lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all 
tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the 
quickness of his wit and invention." 

That brings me to the third proposition, which may- 
be briefly stated thus: If Francis Bacon was a concealed 
dramatist, as well as a concealed poet, and if he wrote 
any or a part of the plays popularly called the Shake- 
speare plays, and if he permitted Shaksper to present them 
to the public and to receive the credit for them, as their 
author, the fact of such authorship, such concealment, 
and such user of Shaksper as Bacon's mask, must have 
been confidentially imparted to and known by Ben Jonson, 
since in no other way can his laudatory and commenda- 
tory utterances and his conduct be explained. 

In the Morgan-Piatt debate, New Shakespeareana, 
April and July, 1903, Mr. Morgan has very clearly shown 
that the name "Shakespeare" was variously spelled by 
publishers and others in Shaksper's time. He is right in 
asserting that there is nothing unusual as to that. But 
what would he say as to the wrong spelling of his own 
name by an intimate and well-educated friend? Or what 
would he expect other people to say of a man who pro- 
fessed to be Appleton Morgan, if the man should present 
a card on which he had written the name thus, "Apelton 
Morgon," and if asked to write it again, he should write 
" Apleton Maurgon"? Ought not such a man to be justly 
branded as an impostor? Would any scholar, acquainted 
with such a fact, recognize him as the real Appleton 
Morgan? It seems to me that a learned man ought to 
know how to spell his own name correctly. If in the 



THE DIVERSE SPELLINGS OF THE NAME. 203 

latter half of the Nineteenth Century, a gentlemanly look- 
ing man had introduced himself to the literary world as 
Mr. Thackeray, the great English writer, and had handed 
to any scholar his card reading thus, "William Makepiece 
Thackaray," the reader of the card would have regarded 
him as an impostor and cheat. Again, if in the present 
year a woman should appear in New York City, styling 
herself "Marie Corelli" and claiming to be the great 
writer who bears that name, an,d if on being asked by a 
reporter for a leading newspaper of that city to present 
him with her autograph, she should write her name as 
"Maria Correli," the reporter would know at once that the 
woman was a fraud. 

Because the man of Stratford-on-Avon wrote his name 
thus, "Shaksper," I have called him "Shaksper" in these 
chapters. 



CHAPTER XX. 

FLOUNDERING IN THE BROAD HIGHWAY OF THE PLAYS. 

" Thou hast lost thy labor." 

—The Winter's Tale, iv, 4. 

I started out in my examination of the plays after a 
great deal of what I thought was very careful preparation. 
First of all, I made a written list of the names of all the 
English writers of the Shaksper period of whom I could 
find any mention, which list I kept always before me 
during my examination of the text. These were : William 
Alabaster, William Alexander, Robert Armin, Francis 
Bacon, William Barksdale, Richard Bamfield, Francis 
Beaumont, Samuel Brandon, Nicholas Breton, Anthony 
Brewer, Richard Brome, William Browne, George Chap- 
man, Henry Chettle, Robert Daborne, Samuel Daniel, 
John Day, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Thomas 
Drue, Richard Eads, John Fletcher, Phineas Fletcher, 
Nathaniel Field, John Ford, Abraham Fraunce, Ulpian 
Ful well, William Gager, Thomas Garter, Robert Greene, 
Fulke Greville, Richard Hathaway, William Haughton, 
Thomas Heywood, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kyd, Thomas 
Legg, Thomas Lodge, John Lyly, David Mallet, Gervase 
Markham, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Philip 
Massinger, Thomas Middleton, Anthony Monday, Thomas 
Nash, Thomas Newton, Richard Niccols, George Peele, 
Henry Porter, Thomas Preston, Samuel Rowley, William 
Rowley, James Shirley, Martin Slater, Wentworth Smyth, 
John Still, John Taylor, Robert Taylor, Cyril Tourneur, 
Thomas Watson, John Webster, Robert Wilson, Henry 
Wotton, and Robert Yarrington. 



FLOUNDERING IN THE BROAD HIGHWAY OF THE PLAYS. 205 

I determined that I would be unbiased and unpreju- 
diced while conducting the wearisome examination, but 
I must confess that at first I could not eliminate from my 
mind a natural feeling in favor of Francis Bacon. That 
arose in this way: I had been selected a few years ago, 
without previous consultation, by the noted Amaranth 
Club, a select literary organization of women whose polite 
requests on literary topics could not be refused, to take 
the position and make the attempt to show that Bacon 
was the author of the plays. Of course I consented and 
made the best argument I could in his favor— an argument 
founded upon the authority of Morgan's "Shakespearean 
Myth" and Holmes' "Authorship of Shakespeare"; and 
naturally enough, for a time I was inclined to espouse the 
Baconian theory. But while recognizing the bias occa- 
sioned by this cursory examination and necessary reliance 
pro tempore upon the arguments of others, I have subjected 
Bacon's works to the same crucial test that I applied to 
the others whose writings I felt it necessary to examine. 

I will now explain the nature of the tests. Henry 
Ward Beecher, in one of his sermons, expressed much better 
than I can the difference, intellectually speaking, between 
men. This is what he said: "Johnson is never mistaken 
for Burke. The way of their words is so different. No 
one could confound Webster in his gigantic speeches and 
Emerson in the stringed pearls of his style. This is recog- 
nition of interior personality, which is far more individual 
than anything corporeal. Plato is dead, but Plato's 
writings exist and Plato exists from them, and there is a 
living Plato and a living Socrates. Thus we have person- 
ality as determined by matter and personality as deter- 
mined by mind." 



206 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Let vis now try Emerson and Webster in this matter 
of personality as determined by mind. Speaking of 
the Bunker Hill Monument, Webster said: "We wish 
finally that the last object to the sight of him who leaves 
his native shore, and the first to gladden him who may 
re-visit it, may be something which shall remind him of 
the liberty and glory of his country. Let it rise! Let it 
rise till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest 
light of the morning gild it and parting day linger and 
play on its summit." 

Now contrast Emerson: "Through the thickest under- 
standing will reason throw itself instantly into relation 
with the truth, that is its object, whenever that appears. 
But how seldom is the pure loadstone produced! Faith 
and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds. Men 
live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which 
yet they never enter, and with their hand on the door 
latch, they die outside." 

Here, now, is a sample of Carlyle: "That such and such 
a one, who filled the whole earth with his hammering and 
troweling and would not let a man pass for his rubbish, 
turns out to have built of mere coagulated froth, and 
vanishes with his edifice, traceless, silently or amid hoot- 
ings illimitable." 

Who but Carlyle could have written such a sentence 
as that? 

The style of Hawthorne, an inimitable master of lucid 
and pleasing detail, is easily recognizable: "Half-way 
down a by-street of one of our New England towns, stands 
a rusty wooden house with seven acutely-peaked gables, 
facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge 
clustered chimney in the midst." 



FLOUNDERING IN THE BROAD HIGHWAY OF THE PLAYS. 207 

An extract from Henry Clay will show the difference 
between his style and that of Webster. He was speaking 
for the recognition of the independence of the South 
American republics. "With regard to their superstition, 
they worship the same God with us. Their prayers are 
offered up in their temples to the same Redeemer, whose 
intercession we expect to save us. All religions united 
with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All 
separated from government are compatible with liberty." 

I cite next and lastly an extract from the writings of a 
famous editor, statesman, and orator, Henry Watterson, 
whose style is familiar to American readers, and yet very 
hard to imitate. " Tried by this standard, where shall 
we find an example so impressive as Abraham Lincoln, 
whose career might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at 
once the prelude and epilogue of the most imperial theme 
of modern times? Born as lowly as the son of God, in a 
hovel; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light 
or fair surrounding; without graces, actual or acquired; 
without name or fame or official training; it was reserved 
for this strange being, late in life, to be snatched from 
obscurity, raised to supreme command at a supreme 
moment, and entrusted with the destiny of a nation." 

These quotations are made to illustrate the intellectual 
individuality or separation of each writer or orator. In 
your library, reader, you have, I shall suppose, the works 
of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Wallace, 
Lever, Trollope, Hugo, Balzac, Dumas, or Kipling. Ex- 
amine, if you please, their books at any page, and you will 
notice what Beecher calls the intellectual individuality 
of each. Dickens repeats himself in each of his novels, 
and so do all the others. 



208 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

There are other characteristics of writers and speakers 
which all who have carefully studied the subject will 
acknowledge. One is based on the limitation of the 
number of words used. An orator may talk very fast and 
very long. A writer may compose as many novels as 
Cooper did, but each speaker and each writer has only a 
limited command of words. That limit controls him, no 
matter how many times he uses the combinations of these 
words. He travels in a certain circuit, and can not get 
out of the verbal rut. 

There is also, as to orators and writers, the character- 
istic of sameness and repetition. Each one has his favor- 
ite words, sentences, and expressions, which he repeats 
again and again with very little change at any time. By 
these characteristics they can generally be recognized and 
identified. Every writer, from Virgil down to Mark Twain, 
has his limit of words, his favorite phrase reproductions, 
and his repetitions, natural or dressed. And then, too, 
in general no two writers or speakers who write or speak 
much use the same words and phrases. Such similarity 
would be exceptional. I would rather, for instance, 
study and trace out the resemblance in the styles and 
turns of expression between Sir Philip Francis and Junius 
than depend upon a comparison of their handwriting. 
A man's writing may be disguised, but the modes of 
expression, the favorite and peculiar phrases and the 
repetitions are almost infallible guides to authorship, 
where the writing is not the work of collaborators. 

I started out, therefore, on an examination of the plays 
with the determination to compare the words, phrases, 
sentences, and peculiar expressions found in them with 
those of the scholars and writers of the Shaksper period. 



FLOUNDERING IN THE BROAD HIGHWAY OF THE PLAYS. 209 

It is, of course, a hard and tedious work to make and 
apply the test of word and phrase limitation to the dis- 
covery of a concealed writer; and the details of the process, 
however sure the result may be, will naturally be dry and 
uninteresting to the general reader. It did not take me 
long, after I started on the road, to discover that I might 
safely eliminate from the list of probable authors of the 
poems and plays all except Francis Bacon, Henry Chettle, 
Samuel Daniel, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, John 
Fletcher, Richard Hathaway, William Haughton, Thomas 
Heywood, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kycl, John Marston, 
Thomas Middleton, Anthony Monday, Henry Porter, 
Wentworth Smyth, John Webster, and Robert Wilson. 
The list, therefore, narrowed down to a select few, eighteen 
in number. Among these eighteen men, the true William 
Shakespeare and the writer or writers of the plays will be 
found by the diligent and painstaking student of English 
literature. 

I began by making an alphabetical index of the familiar 
phrases and turns of expression used in each play, expect- 
ing, by comparing these phrases with the writings of con- 
temporaries above named, to ferret out the true author. 
I had not taken into account, when I began, the inexor- 
able fact that it is utterly impossible for one man, whose 
life-span scarcely ever exceeds seventy years, to use 
twenty-one thousand words. So, when I found myself, 
for instance, assured of the fact that I had unearthed 
in a particular play the words and phrases of Michael 
Drayton, I would be confronted in the very same play 
with the peculiar phrases and expressions of Thomas 
Dekker. And so I floundered in the broad highway, 
because of the fact of collaboration. Wherever a Shake- 



210 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

speare play is a composite production, trouble — and a great 
deal of trouble — comes, and is bound to come, to the deciph- 
erer of authorship. In the five acts of any play, or in any 
play without numbered acts, composed by collaborators, 
the student will find a mixture of expressions, phrases, 
word and sentence peculiarities which will greatly puzzle 
and perplex him. The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher 
illustrate this difficulty. It is hard to tell where Beau- 
mont ends or Fletcher begins and vice versa. When the 
bookseller, Moseley, issued an edition of Beaumont and 
Fletcher after Fletcher's death in 1625, Aubrey addressed 
to Moseley the following complaint, intended to be poetical, 
about the book : 

" In the large book of plays, you late did print 
In Beaumont and Fletcher's name, why in't 
Did you not justice give to each his due? 
For Beaumont of those many writ but few ; 
And Massinger in other few; the main 
Being sweet issues of sweet Fletcher's brain. 
But how came I, you ask, so much to know, 
Fletcher's chief bosom friend informed me so." 

Another difficulty presented itself, which rendered 
progress hard, and that was the additional fact of revision 
or change made necessary from time to time after the play 
was written, either to suit the taste of the theatre-goers 
or the fastidious taste of the composer. The dresser of 
plays, as Ben Jonson styles him, employed by the man- 
ager, had much to do in the way of altering, reconstruct- 
ing, and amending. Henslowe's Diary shows that con- 
clusively. If the receipts of the theatre did not come up 
to Henslowe's expectation, or if the audience showed dis- 
pleasure at the rendition of any particular part of the play, 



FLOUNDERING IN THE BROAD HIGHWAY OF THE PLAYS. 211 

or if it appeared to need an improvement to catch the 
ears of the groundlings, the reviser was called upon at 
once to make the necessary additions, eliminations, or 
amendments. 

With a knowledge of these facts and difficulties, acquired 
after months and months of toil in the broad road of the 
plays, I found it necessary to leave that road, and to start 
afresh on the pathway of the poems. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO THE TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 

"/ had rather than forty shillings I had my book of songs 
and sonnets here." 

— Merry Wives of Windsor, i, 1. 

As I desire to take the reader with me in the search 
for the real Shakespeare, I have blazed for him one path 
which may lead to the true goal. I call it the pathway 
of the poems. The Venus and Adonis and the Tarquin 
and Lucrece constitute that pathway, and the dedications 
with the argument annexed to Tarquin and Lucrece form 
an auxiliary path. 

When I began my explorations in that path, I started 
with an investigation of the Areopagus literary club which 
was composed of a select few of English scholars, and 
which, as will be noticed, was very careless as to the pres- 
ervation of the product of the talent and labors of its 
members. If that club had made and enforced a rule that 
all poems and plays of its members should be safely pre- 
served and kept by some authorized custodian for future 
use, reference, or publication, much, very much would 
have been gained to English literature, and many of the 
great poems and plays of its members, which circulated 
in society after the authors were dead, would have been 
saved from destruction, and when published, credited to 
the real authors by the publishers, who in Elizabeth's day 
were rather piratical. 

The Areopagus Club, I quote from Bourne, "was a 
club started before 1579; composed mainly of courtiers, 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 213 

who aspired to be also men of letters, apparently with 
Sir Philip Sidney as its president, to which were admitted 
other men of letters, among others Spenser in particular, 
who hardly aspired to rank with the courtiers." It seems 
to have had Gabriel Harvey as a corresponding member 
and counselor in chief. Among its exercises we may 
reckon Sidney's "Lady of May" produced in 1578. Dyer 
and Greville were evidently busy members. Though very 
little of his writing survives, Dyer was accounted a great 
poet in his time, and the tragedies by Greville, which are 
extant, were, as he tells us, written in his younger days 
when Sidney was his associate in literary pursuits. Who 
were the other members of the club we know not, but it 
started out with the idea of establishing classical forms in 
English verse writing. Spenser, it seems, composed poems 
and dramas which are either lost or appropriated by some 
one under other titles. Among these I will mention The 
Dying Pelican, a large work finished and ready for the 
press in 1580, The Dreams, and The Stemmata Dudleiana, 
as to which he said, " I never did better." It is a fact not 
generally known that Spenser wrote nine comedies which 
have never appeared, at least under his name; and yet 
Harvey, to whom he sent them together with the Fairy 
Queen for review and criticism, and who was a splendid 
judge of a good poem or play, declared that these nine 
comedies were better than the Fairy Queen, a work which 
the student of English literature well knows ranks by 
universal consent with the ^Eneid, the Canterbury Tales, 
and the Paradise Lost. Harvey wrote to Spenser thus: 
"To be plain, I am void of all judgment, if your nine 
comedies come not nearer Ariosto's comedies either for 
the fineness of plausible execution or the rareness of 



214 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

poetical invention than the Elvish Queen doth to his 
Orlando Furioso." 

Unable to find the lost comedies or other writings of 
the members of the Areopagus Club, I turned to the poems. 
By the poems, I mean the Shake-speare Sonnets, the Venus 
and Adonis, and the Tarquin and Lucrece. 

The diligent reader will wonder why I have left out the 
Shake-speare Sonnets, so called, from the list of pathways 
which lead toward the real author or authors of the plays ; 
and therefore it is eminently proper that I should explain 
clearly why the Sonnets do not so lead, and as I myself 
started first on that supposed pathway, the consideration 
of the authorship of the Sonnets will receive immediate 
attention. I will try to make the reasons for my declara- 
tion of the name of the true author as clear and interesting 
to the studious reader as possible. 

In the year 1609, a book appeared in England called 
" Shake-speare 's Sonnets never before imprinted." The 
word "Shake" and the suffix "speare" were hyphenated, 
thereby distinguishing the hyphenated words from the 
surname "Shaksper." Mr. William Shaksper, the reputed 
author of the plays and poems, was living at that time, 
and he lived for more than six years thereafter, and he 
did not, so far as the world knows, either before or after 
the publication of the Sonnets, claim to be the maker, 
begetter, furnisher, or author of them or any of them; he 
did not take them to the publisher; he did not enter the 
book in the register of the Stationers' Company; he did 
not spell his name in the hyphenated way, and he did not 
dedicate the Sonnets to any one. 

There wag a dedication, however, on a separate leaf, 
next to the title page, in the following words : 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 215 

"TO . THE . ONLIE . BEGETTER . OF . 

THESE . INSUING . SONNETS . 

MR . W . H . ALL . HAPPINESSE. 

AND . THAT . ETERNITIE . 

PROMISED . 

BY . 

OUR . EVER . LIVING . POET . 

WISHETH . 

THE . WELL-WISHING . 

ADVENTURER . IN . 

SETTING . 

FORTH . T . T ." 

Although Shaksper never claimed that he wrote the 
Sonnets, yet on account of the similarity in name, and also 
for the reason that Francis Meres, in 1598, alluded to 
" Shakespeare's sugared sonnets among his private friends," 
in his "Palladis Tamia," the weight of public opinion is 
now on the side of the claimants for Shaksper. 

But because of the very natural doubt arising from the 
apparent illiteracy of Shaksper and from his failure to 
claim or acknowledge the Sonnets, and because of the 
further important fact that the statements and references 
of the sonneteer do not coincide even in the slightest 
detail with the known and undeniable incidents of Shak- 
sper's life, and because also, as a learned writer well puts 
it, "while accepting the Meres mention as proof of the 
authorship of the Sonnets, all commentators, living and 
dead, reject the Meres list of plays," it has come to pass 
within the last few years that some learned students of 
Elizabethan literature have set up the claims of other 
men to the honor of the authorship of the Sonnets. 

This is a step in the right direction, for if William 
Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon did not write the Sonnets, 



216 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

the literary world is interested in knowing who did, if 
such knowledge is attainable. An examination of the 
many books written on the subject of the supposed writer 
of the Sonnets and of the attempted explanations of the 
meaning set out in them (for the two must go together) 
discloses the names of the following reputed authors: Sir 
Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Anthony Shirley, and 
William Shaksper. 

In the year 1838 Armitage Brown wrote a book which 
contains a very fair dissection of the Sonnets. His arrange- 
ment of them is as follows: 

Sonnets 1 to 26 inclusive are addressed to the poet's 
friend, persuading him to marry. 

Sonnets 27 to 55 are addressed to the friend, forgiving 
him for having robbed him of his mistress. 

Sonnets 56 to 77 are addressed to the friend, com- 
plaining of his coldness and warning him of life's decay. 

Sonnets 78 to 101 are addressed to the friend, com- 
plaining that he, the friend, prefers another poet's praises 
and reproving him for faults that may injure his character. 

Sonnets 102 to 126 are also addressed to his friend, 
excusing himself for having been some time silent, and 
disclaiming the charge of inconstancy. 

Sonnets 127 to 152 are addressed to his mistress on the 
subject of her infidelity. 

Coleridge concurs in the foregoing classification of the 
Sonnets. This division will enable the reader to study 
them understandingly if he so desires. 

In the year 1797 Chalmers endeavored to show that 
the Sonnets were addressed to Queen Elizabeth. Massey 
disposes of that conjecture very summarily. "Her 
majesty," he states, "must have been sixty years of age 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 217 

when the Sonnets were written. He, Chalmers, argues 
that Shakspeare, knowing the voracity of Elizabeth for 
praise, thought he would fool her to the top of her bent." 
Chalmers could produce no valid argument in support of 
his conjecture. 

Coleridge guessed that the person addressed by the 
poet was a woman; and Knight also argued that portions 
of the Sonnets were addressed to a female. The careful 
reader will find the position of Coleridge untenable. 

Drake, in 1817, was the first to suggest that the Sonnets 
were addressed to Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southamp- 
ton. Gerald Massey's book, entitled " Shakspeare 's Son- 
nets never before interpreted," a ponderous work of six 
hundred and more pages, was written in support of the 
Drake theory. 

For the purpose of identifying the real author and 
getting rid of the false and unfounded claim of the reputed 
authors above named, by means of an infallible test which 
the Sonnets themselves provide, I now set out at length 
sonnets numbered twenty (20), seventy-six (76), and one 
hundred and thirty-six (136), premising that the true 
interpretation of these three sonnets will solve the mystery 
and disclose the author. 

SONNET 20. 

" A woman's face, with nature's own hand painted, 
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; 
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted 
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion : 
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, 
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; 
A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, 
Which steals men's eyes, and women's souls amazeth; 



218 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

And for a woman wert thou first created; 
Till nature as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, 
And by addition me of thee defeated, 
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. 

But since she pricked thee out for women's pleasure; 

Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure. " 

SONNET 76. 
" Why is my verse so barren of new pride, 
So far from variation or quick change? 
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside 
To new-found methods and to compounds strange? 
Why write I still all one, ever the same, 
And keep invention in a noted weed 
That every word doth almost tell my name, 
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? 
! know, sweet love, I always write of you, 
And you and love are still my argument, 
So, all my best is dressing old words new, 
Spending again what is already spent ; 
For as the sun is daily new and old, 
So is my love, still telling what is told." 

SONNET 136. 
" If thy soul check thee that I come so near, 
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will, 
And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there; 
Thus far for love, my love-suit, sweet, fulfil. 
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love, 
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one. 
In things of great receipt with ease we prove, 
Among a number one is reckon' d none: 
Then, in the number let me pass untold, 
Though in thy store's account I one must be; 
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold 
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee : 
Make but my name thy love, and love that still, 
And then thou lov'st me, — for my name is Will." 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 219 

The line in sonnet twenty, " A man in hue, all hues in 
his controlling," is undoubtedly descriptive of the friend 
and not of the pcet himself. 

Sonnet seventy-six (76) clearly refers to the poet him- 
self, and when he says " that every word doth almost tell 
my name," he tells the reader that the several sonnets 
contain a clue which, if rightly followed, will lead to the 
discovery of his name. 

Sonnet one hundred and thirty-six (136) in the last two 
lines furnishes an additional means of identification, for it 
identifies the poet by the name with which he was famil- 
iarly addressed. 

The claim for Raleigh has been ingeniously and vigor- 
ously advocated by a distinguished Senator from Indiana, 
following the lead of the late William D. O'Connor in his 
"Hamlet's Note Book." That gifted and forcible writer 
thought that the author as indicated by the words "Mr. 
W. H." was Walter Raleigh, the W being the initial letter 
of his Christian name and the H the last letter of his 
surname ; and he insisted, or at least earnestly suggested, 
that the Adventurer "T. T." (the first and last letters 
being similarly used), was the mathematician Thomas 
Hariot, who was Raleigh's fast friend and companion. 
Mr. O'Connor overlooked the fact that the person who 
subscribed the dedication was not a mysterious or con- 
cealed person at all, but a printer and bookseller of con- 
siderable eminence named Thomas Thorpe, as clearly 
appears from the register of the Stationers' Company, 
where the entry of the book is found thus : 

" 20 May, 1609" 
"Thomas Thorpe, a book called Shake-speare's Sonnets." 



220 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Mr. O'Connor himself states that he had not at his 
command "the measured leisure necessary to establish 
these assertions beyond cavil and to spread open the 
meaning of the Sonnets." One great mistake was made 
by him, which has been also made by others, in supposing 
that the dedicatee, "Mr. W. H." was any one else than the 
mere procurer or furnisher of the sonnets to the publisher, 
Thorpe. His great mistake lies in the construction of the 
Sonnets as being principally connected with the personi- 
fication of a divine purpose. He is quite right, however, 
in supposing that the author loved outward adornment; 
that he was poor, and that he personally knew the noble 
and ardent Giordano Bruno, but neither Mr. O'Connor 
nor any other advocate of Raleigh's authorship can show 
that he had a friend to whom the words of the seventh 
line of the twentieth sonnet above quoted are applicable. 
What dear friend of Raleigh's was " a man in hue, all hues 
in his controlling"? Again, it is impossible to show the 
applicability of the lines of the seventy-sixth sonnet to 
Raleigh's name. What word in the sonnets, frequently 
repeated, represents the name of Raleigh? Unless such a 
word can be found, it would be futile to make a claim in 
behalf of Raleigh. So also, it would be necessary to further 
show that Raleigh was called "Will" in order to be in 
accord with the statement in Sonnet 136: 

"And then thou lov'st me, for my name is Will." 

Raleigh was never called Will. 

The same three tests will apply as well to Sir Francis 
Bacon and Anthony Shirley. What friend did Bacon 
have who answers the description of the writer's friend 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 221 

in the twentieth sonnet, or what word, iterated and re- 
iterated in the Sonnets, tells Bacon's name? Or when 
was Bacon ever called Will or Willy? 

A very able anonymous writer, calling himself a grad- 
uate of Cambridge, has undertaken in a book lately pub- 
lished, entitled "Is it Shakespeare?" to argue that Bacon 
was the author of the Sonnets. To make his argument 
at all plausible, he is forced to take the position that Bacon 
was a libertine and even worse ; that he was in touch with 
Queen Elizabeth's maids of honor, and very full of "wild 
oats." He tries to account for the Will of the Sonnets by 
guessing that the reference is to Will Shaksper, William 
Herbert, and Sir William Knollys. He calls Knollys a new 
candidate for the position, but not one of his introducing. 
The reader will notice that his theory as to the authorship 
of the Sonnets is all furnished out of conjecture, in imita- 
tion of the Shaksperite biographers. He uses, for illus- 
tration of his methods, such phrases as these: "Here I 
contend we have." "But I have a suggestion to make." 
"I suggest that." "I suggest as highly probable that." 
" I should not be surprised if. " " I have sometimes thought 
that." "There seems little reason to doubt that." "My 
strong impression is." That is the very system of the 
Shaksperites. Besides indulging in conjecture, he en- 
deavors to divide the Sonnets into classes to suit his theory. 
He asserts that it is difficult to believe that Bacon was 
the author of Sonnet 151. He is unable, he confesses, to 
solve the enigma of the dark lady. He can not explain 
the meaning of the line in the twentieth Sonnet; and at 
last, he surmises that the author had been reading the 
Arcadia of Sidney and that he had extracted much of the 
matter of the first thirteen Sonnets from that work. " It 



222 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

looks," he says, "as if the author had been asked to try 
his pupil pen in turning Sidney's prose into sonnets. So 
many and close are the parallels, Sir Walter Scott thought 
that Sidney must have read the Sonnets." Here he was 
getting very near to the truth — he was on a very hot 
trail. The greatest trouble encountered by this writer is 
that he can not explain " how every word doth almost tell 
my name." He is clearly right in saying that the way to 
discover the chief writer of the plays is through the poems ; 
but a more careful examination will convince this brilliant 
writer that the Sonnets do not lead to a discovery of any 
author of the plays. 

Shirley's claim by one author is based upon the refer- 
ence in Sonnets 76, 105, 135, and 136 to the words "one" 
and "all one" as if they pointed to the ancient seal of the 
Ferrers family, which contained the arms of the family 
upon a chimney piece with the motto "only one." 

The sole merit in the argument is that the writer has 
grasped at one of the conceits of the author of the Sonnets, 
but has failed to fathom its meaning. Beyond this con- 
ceit, no valid argument can be adduced in support of 
Shirley. He does not fit the tests of Sonnets 20, 76, and 
136. 

But did Shaksper write the Sonnets? 

To show that he did not write them, it is not necessary 
to rely merely upon his ignorance and consequent inability. 
I assert that upon the face of the Sonnets themselves, the 
evidence that Shaksper did not write them will appear 
plainly to the careful and disinterested reader. The 
first twenty-six sonnets undoubtedly refer to a male 
friend of the sonneteer; and the friend is earnestly en- 
treated to marry. The friend was beautiful; he was 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 223 

young; he had a beautiful mother; he was "a man in hue, 
all hues in his controlling" (whatever that may mean), as 
pictured in the twentieth sonnet, and he was very much 
beloved by the poet. 

Now I challenge the most ardent, enthusiastic, and 
learned admirer of William Shaksper to point to any 
friend of his who will answer the description in these 
twenty-six sonnets, or whose name or description will 
correspond with the peculiar and unquestionably pun- 
ning designation of the "man in hue" in the twentieth 
sonnet. 

Mr. Thomas Tyler, who, with the aid of the Rev. W. A. 
Harrison, issued a carefully prepared and annotated edition 
of the Sonnets in 1890, has attempted to bridge over this 
difficulty by guessing blindly and boldly that the friend 
was the Earl of Pembroke and the Mr. W. H. to whom 
the bookseller Thorpe dedicated the Sonnets. It is both 
unreasonable and absurd that a plain man of the com- 
monalty, one of the lower orders in England, when about 
to publish a book of poems, would address so exalted a 
personage as William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke and 
Knight of the Garter, as plain "Mr. H." In the days of 
good Queen Bess, the title of "Right Honorable" would 
have been used in the dedication by one of the common- 
alty, and especially by a bookseller, when dedicating a 
book to such a superior in rank as an Earl. This Mr. H. 
was not even an Esquire. Titles then, as now, counted for 
something in England. When Mr. Tyler alleges that the 
Earl of Pembroke was the friend of Shaksper, it is neces- 
sary for him to give some reasonable proof that he knew 
Shaksper, or, if he knew him, that he liked him so much 
that he was willing to have him publicly notice his licen- 



224 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

tious doings, and it is also necessary for him to identify 
him as " a man in hue, all hues in his controlling," and that 
he can not do. 

The Tyler hypothesis is founded upon five conjectures 
or guesses, every one of which is either absurd, improbable, 
or unsupported by any reliable evidence. 

1. That the Earl of Pembroke was the Mr. W. H. of 
Thorpe. 

2. That Mrs. Mary Fitton, one of Queen Elizabeth's 
maids of honor, was the mistress of Shaksper, and was 
the black-eyed woman alluded to in the 127th and 132d 
sonnets. 

3. That Shaksper played before the Queen. 

4. That Mrs. Fitton knew him and thrust herself upon 
his acquaintance for the purpose of falling in love with 
him. 

5. That Shaksper knew Pembroke and quarreled with 
him about this mistress of Shaksper. 

All this is the veriest literary and causeless abuse of 
the dead, as unsubstantial "as the baseless fabric of a 
vision." It has not a fact to support it. 

To show the reader with what skill Mr. Tyler has con- 
cocted the silly fiction about Mrs. Fitton, I quote from 
Tyler's "Shakespeare Sonnets," page 76: 

"We are not able to connect Mrs. Fitton personally 
with Shakespeare by proof as direct as that which in the 
case of Herbert is furnished by the dedication of the 
First Folio." 

The Rev. W. A. Harrison, however, some time ago 
called attention to evidence which brings Mrs. Fitton into 
connection with a member of Shakespeare's Company, 
that is, the Lord Chamberlain's Company, leaving it, as 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 225 

Tyler conjectures, to be easily inferred that she must 
have been acquainted with the members of the Company 
generally, and especially with such as were more promi- 
nent. In 1600, William Kemp, the clown in the company, 
dedicated his Nine Days' Wonder to "Mistress Anne 
Fitton, Mayde of honor to Most Sacred Mayde Royal 
Queen Elizabeth." 

Mr. Harrison certainly, with the aid of Mr. Tyler, has 
produced a nine days' wonder. 

Because Mr. Kemp dedicated a book to Mrs. Fitton, 
"it is easy to be inferred," says Tyler, "that Mrs. Fitton 
must have been acquainted with the members of the 
theatrical company to which Kemp belonged, and espe- 
cially with those who were most prominent; and that 
being so acquainted, it is easily to be inferred that this 
Mrs. Fitton should seduce or be seduced by the man of 
Stratford." 

Tyler continues thus on page 77: "These facts are 
interesting and important, and even taken alone they 
would go far toward removing the difficulty which might 
otherwise be felt about Shakespeare's forming a connec- 
tion with a lady of so high a rank as one of the Queen's 
maids of honor." 

It seems to me that the fact that Kemp dedicated his 
book to Anne Fitton instead of a Mary Fitton would 
naturally indicate that even if he intended to dedicate 
his book to Mrs. Mary Fitton he was so little acquainted 
with a lady of so high a rank as one of Queen Elizabeth's 
maids of honor that he did not even know her Chris- 
tian name. He certainly did not get the name right. 
And that thread must be a very slender thread indeed, 
infmitesimally so, which would give a woman of high 



226 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

rank an acquaintanceship with all the members of 
Kemp's company because, forsooth, she happened to 
know one of them. 

Mr. Tyler became a little despondent and shaky as to 
his theory about the attempted identification of Mrs. 
Fitton as the dark lady of the Sonnets, and he is com- 
pelled to state another very strong objection to his hy- 
pothesis. At page 77 of his work on the Sonnets he says : 

"An objection, however, to identifying Mrs. Fitton 
with the lady of the Sonnets has been drawn from this 
very dedication of Kemp's. In addressing so very dark a 
lady as the lady of the Sonnets evidently was, would Kemp 
have dared to speak so disparagingly as he does of 'a 
Blackamoore?' — ' But, in a word, your poore seruant offers 
the truth of his progresse and profit to your honourable 
view; receive it, I beseech you, such as it is, rude and 
plaine; for I know your pure iudgment lookes as soone 
to see beauty in a Blackamoore, or heare smooth speach 
from a Stammerer, as to finde any thing but blunt mirth 
in a Morrice dauncer, especially such a one as Will Kemp, 
that hath spent his life in mad Iigges and merry iestes.' 
In reply to the objection just mentioned, it must be 
observed that though the lady of the Sonnets is spoken of 
as 'black' in contrast to Elizabethan fairness, yet it is by 
no means implied that her skin was like that of a negro. 
No: she was clearly a brunette: her complexion was 
'dun' (130, line 3) — a very different thing indeed. Then 
Kemp's allusion is not merely, or perhaps mainly, to the 
colour of a negro or ' blackamoore. ' Probably he was think- 
ing more of the features and modelling of the face of a 
negro, with their usual unsightliness, at least from our 
point of view." 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 227 

Poor Will Shaksper! Not only was he made by tradi- 
tion "William the Conqueror," but he is made by Tyler 
a prey to the seductive influences of " so very dark a lady" 
that it is a question whether her skin was like that of a 
negro, or only black in contrast to Elizabethan fairness. 
Mr. Tyler is not willing that he should have been seduced 
by a " blackamoore." He is entirely willing that he should 
have been seduced, however, by Mrs. Fitton, no matter 
what the color of her skin might have been, because he says 
at page 78 that, "What has just been said about Kemp 
and his dedication may easily suggest that, on Shake- 
speare's Company performing at Court, Mrs. Fitton may 
have become interested in Shakespeare, either as the 
author of the play or otherwise, and so have introduced 
herself to him." 

Here, now, we have added by the admirers of the 
gentle Shaksper to the story of his impudent licentious- 
ness in connection with the actor Burbage, the story of an 
illicit amour of Shaksper with the dark-eyed lady of the 
Sonnets, founded on the conjectured acquaintance of the 
lady with another actor, Kemp. Of such wretched stuff 
our knowledge of a man whom they worship as England's 
greatest poet is fabricated ! 

Worse even than that is the position which the gentle 
Shaksper is made to occupy by the adoption of the Harrison 
and Tyler hypothesis. He, whether the seducer of Queen 
Elizabeth's maid of honor or the victim of her wiles, 
writes, according to Tyler and Harrison, the sugared story 
of the amour in poetry for circulation among and the delec- 
tation of his private and particular friends. Not content, 
however, with such private circulation of the particulars of 
his lascivious and criminal conduct among his associates 



228 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

and boon companions, he then suffers Thomas Thorpe, the 
printer, to publish his amorous proceedings for the benefit 
of the world at large in 1609, seven years before his death. 

The Gerald Massey hypothesis, which is only formidable 
for its length, is more becoming, to say the least of it. 
Massey guesses that Shaksper was urging the Earl of 
Southampton to get married, and striving to make him, 
Southampton, immortal by means of the Sonnets, and that 
Elizabeth Vernon, whom the Earl married, was jealous of 
the dark-eyed lady of the Sonnets. 

Massey's book is full of conjecture. Absurdities also 
characterize it. Thus, for instance, referring to the fact 
that Southampton was released from imprisonment after 
the death of Queen Elizabeth, Massey says "We may rest 
assured that Shakspeare was one of the first to greet his 
'dear boy,' over whose errors he had grieved and upon 
whose imprudent unselfishness he had looked with tears, 
half of sorrow and half of pride. He had loved him as a 
father loves a son; he had warned him and prayed for 
him and fought in soul against fortune on his behalf, and 
he now welcomed him from the gloom of a prison on his 
way to a palace and the smile of a monarch. This was 
the poet's written gratulation." 

The reader at this point would reasonably expect that 
the "written gratulation" of the poet would be in the 
shape of a delicate note or an epistle of some sort, but 
instead of that Massey audaciously sets out the one hun- 
dred and seventh sonnet as the gratulatory writing, quoting 
that particular sonnet in full as his warrant for his assur- 
ance of the truth of the foregoing statement, and forgetting 
or ignoring the fact that the Sonnets were written before 
1598 and that Southampton was not released from prison 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 229 

until April 10, 1603. The reference by Meres to "Shake- 
speare's sugared sonnets among his private friends" the 
reader will remember was printed in 1598, nearly five 
years before Southampton's exit from confinement. 

The hypothesis of Henry Brown, who wrote a book 
about the Sonnets, is that the Sonnets are a purposed 
imitation of the extravagant assertions and eccentric love 
descriptions of the Italian and English sonneteers, as well 
as a satire on the times. 

All these hypotheses ignore the primary and leading 
rule of construction as to prose and poetry, law and litera- 
ture, which prevails and governs, viz: that words used 
must, if possible, be considered in their literal and ordinary 
signification, and that every part must be viewed in con- 
nection with the whole. It is very apparent that the 
writer of the Sonnets meant in the 76th sonnet to state 
that in almost every sonnet his name or a word that would 
represent or tell or betray his name appears. He also 
means to show in the 136th sonnet that he was called 
Will or Willy. Now while Shaksper may have been 
called "Will," what word is there in the Sonnets which 
almost tells his name, and who was the friend who was 
" a man in hue, all hues in his controlling?" 

Just as in the case of Bacon, Raleigh, and Shirley, no 
word of similar meaning to the names of any of them can 
be found in the Sonnets to be fitted into their names, so 
no such word can be found to fit Shaksper's name. While 
the test in the 136th sonnet might apply to him, that in 
the 76th does not, and the description in sonnet twenty 
applied to no friend of his. The author of the Sonnets 
must appear on the face of the Sonnets somewhere. The 
writer so states. He was clearly a man fond of punning 



230 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

and of using anagrams and riddles. He was a lover of 
women and a very ardent lover of one woman in particular, 
and he was a quick, impulsive, natural poet; he was a 
very warm friend and had many warm friends; he was a 
courtier and he has a peculiar style and manner by which, 
in addition to the means he himself employs in the Sonnets, 
his authorship may be detected. Who was this sonneteer? 
The Sonnets themselves will show. 

But before undertaking to discover the sonneteer, let 
us briefly take up the vexed question of the identity of 
"Mr. W. H." the dedicatee of the Sonnets. We know of 
course that the dedicator "T. T." was not the author of 
the Sonnets, and that he was merely a printer named 
Thomas Thorpe. It is reasonably certain also, as already 
stated, that Mr. W. H. was a commoner pure and simple, 
because he was addressed by the printer as plain Mr. 
W. H. This Mr. H. was called by Thorpe "the only 
begetter of these ensuing sonnets." Thorpe meant of 
course by the word "begetter" that Mr. W. H. was the 
procurer or furnisher of the manuscript to him, and not 
the composer of the poetry contained in the manuscript. 
Who was this begetter or furnisher? While it is not of the 
slightest importance who he was or how he was called and 
known unless he can be connected in some way with the 
author, I will hazard a conjecture that he was the William 
Hewes who was a servitor and follower of the Essex family. 

Walter, Earl of Essex, the father of Penelope Devereux, 
afterward Lady Rich, and of Robert the second Earl of 
Essex, the unfortunate favorite of Queen Elizabeth, died 
on the twenty-second day of September, 1576. Edward 
Waterhouse, who was with him during his last illness, thus 
describes the incidents which occurred just preceding his 



SONNETS DO NOT LEAD TO TRUE SHAKESPEARE. 231 

death. I quote from the "Lives and Letters of the Dever- 
eux, Earls of Essex," written by Captain Devereux of the 
Royal Navy, Vol. 1, p. 145: 

" The night following, the Friday night, which was the 
night before he died, he called William Hewes, which was 
his musician, to play upon the virginal and to sing. ' Play,' 
said he, 'my song, Will Hewes, and I will sing it myself.' 
So he did it most joyfully, not as the howling swan, which, 
still looking down, waileth her end, but as a sweet lark; 
lifting up his hands, and casting up his eyes to his God, 
with this mounted the crystal skies, and reached with his 
unwearied tongue the top of the highest heavens. Who 
could have heard and seen this violent conflict, having 
not a stonied heart, without innumerable tears and watery 
plaints?" 

I am entitled, I think, to the foregoing conjecture, 
especially upon a matter so unimportant as the discovery 
of the full name — Christian and surname — of the conveyer 
of the Shake-speare Sonnets to printer Thorpe. But it is 
a mere conjecture. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS, AND HOW IDENTIFIED. 

"A halting sonnet of his own pure brain." 

— Much Ado About Nothing, v. 4. 

And who was Philisides, and how do you know that 
he wrote the Shakespeare Sonnets? 

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, every literary person 
knew who Philisides was. 

Edmund Spenser, in lamenting his untimely death, 
wrote thus of him: 

" Nor ever sing the love-lays which he made, — 
Who ever made such lays of love as he? 
Nor ever read the riddles which he said — 
Unto yourselves, to make you merry glee." 

And the great poet, Michael Drayton, in his epistle to 
Reynolds, relates how Philisides infected his contempo- 
raries and immediate successors with his puns and riddles : 

" The noble Sidney with this last arose, 
That hero was for numbers and for prose, 
That throughly paced our language, as to show 
The plenteous English hand in hand might go 
With Greek and Latin, and did first reduce 
Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use ; 
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies, 
Playing with words and idle similes ; 
As the English, apes and very zanies be 
Of everything that they do hear and see, 
So imitating his ridiculous tricks, 
They spake and writ all like mere lunatics." 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 233 

Yes, Philisides was Sir Philip Sidney, and I feel sure 
that I can convince the reader that he wrote the Shake- 
speare Sonnets. I will give a few reasons which I think 
are valid and unanswerable in support of the claim. 

The first one is that "love" is the chief word and argu- 
ment of the Sonnets. It is found in them more than two 
hundred times. Love is the word which tells the author's 
name. He himself so states in the tenth line of the seventy- 
sixth sonnet: 

" know, sweet love, I always write of you 
And you and love are still my argument." 

But how does love stand for and represent the name of 
Sir Philip Sidney? Sidney indulged rather extravagantly 
in what Camden calls "the alchemy of wit." In other 
words, he arranged his name in the form of an anagram 
or metagram. If the reader will consult a very interesting 
article on Spenser in Volume 2 of the Atlantic Monthly 
for November, 1858, on page 676, he will find Sidney's 
method of obtaining a pseudonym thus described. I here 
quote the material part of it : 

"Sir Philip Sidney, having abridged his own name into 
Phil. Sid., anagrammatized it into Philisides. Refining still 
further, he translated Sid., the abridgment of Sidus, into 
Astron, and retaining the Phil, as derived from Philos, 
loved, he constructed for himself another pseudonym,' 
and adopted the poetical name of Astrophil, star of love,' 
or love star. Feeling moreover that the Lady Rich| 
celebrated in his sonnets, was the bright particular star of 
his affection, he designated her, in conformity with his 
own assumed name, Stella." 



234 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Hence Philip was "love" and Penelope Rich, or Stella, 
was the star of his love. Sidney was known both as 
Astrophil and Philisides to his friends and the men and 
women of letters, and therefore in the seventy-sixth sonnet 
he could truthfully say : 

" Why write I still all one, ever the same? 
And keep invention in the noted weed, 
That every word doth almost tell my name 
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed." 

A perusal by the reader of Sidney's life or of his poems 
will satisfy every disinterested reader that I have right- 
fully identified him by the word "love." That is the 
word which almost tells his name. 

A second and very strong reason for identifying Sidney 
as the author of the Shakespeare Sonnets is founded upon 
the correct and reasonable interpretation of the seventh 
line of the twentieth sonnet — a line which has been a 
stumbling-block to all the commentators, and their name 
is legion. No one has hitherto been able to explain that 
line or to give the poet's meaning satisfactorily. The 
line reads thus: 

"A man in hue, all hues in his controlling." 

I explain it thus: Sir Philip Sidney had two very inti- 
mate friends — Sir Edmund Dyer and Fulke Greville, 
afterward Lord Brooke, and his love for them "was won- 
derful, surpassing the love of women." Sidney, Greville, 
and Dyer in their poems were fond of punning and playing 
upon their own names. Dyer, for instance, wrote a poem 
which elicited a poetical answer from Sidney and a poetical 
reply from Greville, and the name of Dyer in the last 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 235 

stanza of one was changed into Die ere, while Greville's 
name in the replication was metamorphosed into Grieve-ill. 
I quote for the reader's benefit some of the verses. The 
first is from Dyer: 

"0, frail inconstant, kind 
0, safe in trust to no man! 
No, women angels be, and lo 
My mistress is a woman. 

My muse, if any ask, 
Whose grievous case was such? 
Die ere thou let his name be known, 
His folly shows so much." 

A part of Greville's reply is as follows: 

" And I myself am he 
That doth with none compare, 
Except in woes and lack of worth 
Whose states more wretched are. 

Let no man ask my name, 
Nor what else I should be 
For Grieve-ill pain, for low estate, 
Doth best decipher me." 

The Shakespeare Sonnets were addressed to Dyer and 
in the twentieth sonnet Sidney puns upon Dyer's name, 
likening him to a dyer, who in his business controls and 
fixes all hues and colors. 

And here a third good reason for the identification of 
Sidney as the author of the Sonnets can be adduced, 
namely, the connection and resemblance between the 
poet's statements and the surrounding facts and circum- 



236 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

stances. Sidney, in the Sonnets, advises his friend Dyer 
to marry. He uses such arguments to persuade him as 
his own mentor, Hubert Languet, had previously urged 
upon him. Symonds says that " Languet frequently 
wrote, urging Sidney to marry and using arguments 
similar to those which Shake-speare pressed on his fair 
friend." Dyer was an unmarried man, and never did 
marry, and it is evident from his life-history that he was 
also deeply enamored of the wanton Lady Rich. When- 
ever she was in trouble, she made use of Dyer. So also 
did her brother, whom she ruled. 

This dearly beloved friend of Sidney was a favorite at 
Court. He was an adviser of Sir Christopher Hatton; 
and, as above stated, Stella's brother, the Earl of Essex, 
greatly relied upon him. Thus, in the summer of 1587 
Essex wrote to Dyer, after making a vain search for him 
at Winchester House, "I would have given a thousand 
pounds to have had one hour's speech with you; so much 
I would hearken to your counsel and so greatly do I 
esteem your friendship." 

That Sidney was rather fond of giving such marrying 
advice as is used in the Sonnets is shown very plainly in 
his poetical dialogue between Geron and Histor in Chapter 
71 of the "Arcadia." It will not appear strange to any 
reader of that book that Sidney could actually think or 
say that he loved a man as fondly as appears in the Sonnets, 
for in the "Arcadia" he similarly pictures the love of Musi- 
dorusand Pyrocles. D'Israeli, in his "Amenities of Litera- 
ture," says that " their friendship resembles the love which 
is felt for the beautiful sex" and Coleridge observes that 
" the language of these two friends in the Arcadia is such 
as we would not use except to women." 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 237 

Sonnets 37, 66, 110, and 125 very fairly describe Sidney. 
He was extremely poor and very proud, and his parents 
were always distressed by poverty. His body after death 
was seized for debt and kept three months from burial, 
until Walsingham mustered enough money of his own to 
pay Sidney's creditors. He bore the canopy (see sonnet 
125) as a gentleman in waiting or cup-bearer for the Queen 
in the summer of 1578, and he learned enough from per- 
sonal intercourse with courtiers, male and female, to utter 
the mournful cry which is contained in the 66th sonnet. 
Sidney's quarrel with Oxford and his bold and pointed 
letter to the Queen concerning the worthlessness and 
meanness of the Duke of Anjou, and the danger to the 
realm if she married a Roman Catholic, caused his dis- 
grace and retirement from the Court. 

Bourne, in his "Life of Sidney," says that "early in 
January, 1580, Sidney addressed to the Queen a very bold 
and memorable letter. It was the Protestants, Sidney 
urged, who were the stoutest, if not the only, supporters 
of the Queen's government. 'How their hearts will be 
galled, if not aliened, when they shall see you take for a 
husband a Frenchman and a Papist, in whom (howsoever 
fine wits may find farther dealings or painted excuses) 
the very common people know this, that he is the son of 
a Jezebel of our age — that his brother made oblation of 
his sister's marriage, the easier to make massacres of our 
brethren in belief — that he himself, contrary to his promise 
and to all gratefulness, having his liberty and principal 
estate by the Huguenots' means, did sack La Charite, 
and utterly spoil them with fire and sword!' 

"'Since, then,' the brave courtier wrote in conclusion — 
' since, then, it is dangerous for your State — since to your 



238 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

person it can be no way comfortable, you not desiring 
marriage, and neither to person nor State he is to bring 
any more good than anybody (but more evil he may) — 
since the causes that should drive you to this are fears of 
either that which can not happen or by this means can not 
be prevented — I do with most humble heart say unto your 
Majesty that, as for your standing alone, you must take 
it for a singular honour God hath done you, to be indeed 
the only protector of His Church. As for this man, as 
long as he is but Monsieur in might and a Papist in pro- 
fession, he neither can nor will greatly shield you; and, 
if he get once to be king, his defence will be like Ajax' 
shield, which rather weighed down than defended those 
that bare it. Against contempt, if there be any, which 
I will never believe, let your excellent virtues of piety, 
justice, and liberality daily — if it be possible — more and 
more shine. Let such particular actions be found out, 
which be easy as I think to be done, by which you may 
gratify all the hearts of your people. Let tfrose in whom 
you find trust, and to whom you have committed trust 
in your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your 
subjects. Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as you 
should be, the example of princes, the ornament of this 
age, the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, and the 
perfect mirror of your posterity.'" 

The good sense of this long epistle did not influence the 
Queen, nor did the compliments with which it ended 
conciliate her. For at least two years longer she regarded 
the Duke of Anjou as her suitor, and Sidney was punished 
for his boldness by exclusion for a time from the royal 
presence. Languet was not mistaken in supposing that 
Sidney was in danger of imprisonment and might have to 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 239 

flee the country. " You will hardly find safety in Flanders," 
Languet wrote on the 30th of January, "and still less in 
France; your religion shuts you out of Spain and Italy; 
so that Germany is the only country left to receive you, 
should you be forced to quit your own land." 

The careful reader of English history will remember that 
in Camden's "Annals" it is related that Queen Elizabeth 
was so incensed by the publication of a book inveighing 
in violent terms against the proposed match with the 
Duke, which the author termed "an union of a daughter 
of God with a son of Antichrist," that she caused the author 
Stubbs, the publisher Page, and one Singleton, the printer, 
to be tried under an act passed by Philip and Mary against 
the writers and disseminators of seditious publications, 
and they were sentenced to have their right hands struck 
off. Elizabeth must have been very angry at Sidney for 
his bold protest against the intended marriage. 

Sidney could very well say that he was made lame by 
Fortune's dearest spite. He was not permitted to marry 
Anne Cecil; and Penelope Devereaux, whom he dearly 
loved, was given away to Lord Rich, a man whom she 
despised and hated. Sidney was fond of spending money 
when he could get it and he was very liberal and aristo- 
cratic; but his means were limited and he was greatly in 
debt. He was in disgrace at Court; he was a dependent 
upon Leicester; he had made himself "a motley to the 
view." 

A fourth reason for the belief that Sir Philip Sidney 
wrote the Shakespeare Sonnets is that his name, among 
his associates, was "Will" or "Willy." Spenser calls him 
so in his "Tears of the Muses." In the eclogue on Sidney's 
death, heretofore quoted, and printed in Davison's " Poetical 



240 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Rhapsodies" in 1602, Sidney is lamented in almost every 
stanza by the name of " Willy." 

Thus it will now be noted by the careful reader that 
Sidney's friend was Dyer, "a man in hue, all hues in his 
controlling," exactly fitting the twentieth sonnet; that 
the poet was Sidney, whose name was "love" — the argu- 
ment of the sonnets, as pointed out in sonnet seventy- 
six; and that his name, as expressed in the 136th sonnet, 
was "Will." It will also be particularly noted that all 
the surrounding facts and circumstances coincide with the 
poet's statements. The name of no other poet in the 
days of Elizabeth will successfully meet all these tests, 
and all must be met. 

I give, now, a fifth reason for my opinion that Sidney 
wrote the Sonnets, namely, the similarity of style between 
the Shake-speare Sonnets and the acknowledged writings 
of Sidney. 

Desiring to abstain from self-assertion and to plant 
myself upon the firm basis of received authority, I will 
lay down no rule of my own as to Sidney's style, pre- 
ferring to adopt the judgment of Jusserand, who, in "The 
English Novel before Shakespeare," says, at page 255, that 
" the rules of Sidney's style consist first, in the antithetical 
and cadenced repetition of the same words in the sentences 
merely for effect, as for example, ' A greater greatness to 
give a kingdom than to get a kingdom,' and 'either for 
the love of honor or honor of his love.' Secondly, in 
persistently ascribing life and feeling to inanimate objects, 
as for example, ' Did you not mark how the wind whistled 
and the seas danced for joy; how the sails did swell with 
pride, and all because they had Urania?" 

I give a few examples under each rule: 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 241 

Jusserancl's First Rule. 
" Music to hear, why hearest thou music sadly?" 

— Sonnet 8, 1. 

"So long lives this and this gives life to thee." 

—Sonnet 18, 14. 

"Mine ransoms yours and yours must ransom me." 

—Sonnet 120, 14. 

"Love's fire heats water, water cools not love." 

—Sonnet 154, 14. 

Jusserancl's Second Rule. 

"When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, 
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field." 

—Sonnet 2, 1. 

" Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eyes." 

— Sonnet 33, 1. 

"Lean penury within that pen doth dwell." 

—Sonnet 84, 5. 

" The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, 
One blushing shame, another white despair." 

—Sonnet 99. 

Sonnet 99 abounds in the ascription of life and feeling 
to inanimate objects, and a comparison of the sonnet with 
Sidney's writings will show many such resemblances. 

Again, the phrases and turns of expression in the 
Sonnets afford striking resemblances to those which Sidney 
uses, as for example: 

" When forty winters shall besiege thy brow." 

—Sonnet 2, 1. 

" When forty winters have I married been." 

— Arcadia. 

"And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill." 

—Sonnet 16, 14. 

"With his sweet skill, my skilless youth he drew." 

— Arcadia. 



242 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

" Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit 
Is poorly imitated after you." 

—Sonnet 53, 5. 

" I will think my pictures be image-like 
Of saints' perfection, poorly counterfeiting thee." 

—Sidney. 

"Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind, 
Still constant in a wondrous excellence." 

—Sonnet 108, 5. 

" Such as you see, such still you shall me find, 
Constant and kind." 

— Arcadia. 

"Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue, hate." 

—Sonnet 142, 1. 

"Then love is sin and let me sinful be." 

— Astrophel and Stella. 

Sidney and the author of the Sonnets were both fond 
of using ambiguous or paradoxical descriptions of persons 
or objects. To illustrate : 

Shake-speare Sonnet numbered 135 reads thus (the 
"wills" not capitalized being italicized by me) : 

"Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will, 
And will to boot, and will in overplus ; 
More than enough am I that vex thee still, 
To thy sweet will making addition thus. 
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, 
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine? 
Shall will in others seem right gracious, 
And in my will no fair acceptance shine? 
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still, 
And in abundance addeth to his store; 
So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will 
One will of mine, to make thy large will more. 
Let no unkind no fair beseechers kill ; 
Think all but one, and me in that one will." 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 243 

Sidney, in the 37th sonnet of Astrophel and Stella, 
indulges in the same kind of word play, as thus : 

"Toward Aurora's Court a nymph doth dwell, 
Rich in all beauties, which man's eye can see, 
Beauties so far from reach of words, that we 
Abase her praise, saying she doth excel; 
Rich in the treasure of deserved renown, 
Rich in the riches of a royal heart, 
Rich in those gifts which giveth eternal crown; 
Who though most rich in these and every part 
Which make the patents of true worldly bliss, 
Hath no misfortune but that Rich she is." 

Sidney and the author of the Sonnets both use the 
expressions: "And so, and in, and therefore, and though, 
and when alas, as I, but for, but now, but then, but yet, 
even as, farewell, for that, for as, hast thou, how much 
more, how oft, I never, if thou, like to, needs must, 
else, how, or if, perforce, save that, since what, since 
that, so oft, take heed, therefore, thou art, thus is, whereto, 
why dost thou." 

Other resemblances and peculiarities are readily traced. 
For instance, the author of the Sonnets ends a line with 
the letter I, as thus in sonnet 72, line 7 : " And hang more 
praises on deceased I." 

Compare the "Astrophel and Stella" sonnets 103, 104, 
and 105: 

"She so disheveled, blushed from window, I." 
"From out my ribs and puffing proves that I." 
"I swear by her I love and lack that I." 

In sonnet 85 the poet uses the phrase, " And like unlet- 
tered clerk, still cry, Amen." 



244 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

It is noticeable that Sidney was a clerk in holy orders 
in the church of Whitford. 

Both Mr. Brown, in his " Shake-speare's Sonnets 
Solved," and Massey, in his " Commentary on the Sonnets," 
unwittingly furnish corroborative evidence in favor of 
my claim for Sidney. 

Mr. Brown asserts that Sidney's love for Stella (Penel- 
ope Rich) and her love for him gave rise to the Sonnets, 
and Massey admits that "the supposed dark lady of the 
Sonnets is the famous golden-haired, black-eyed beauty, 
Penelope Rich, the first love of Philip Sidney, the cousin 
of Elizabeth Vernon, the sister of Essex and the Helen of 
the Elizabethan poets." 

The doctrine of the cycles is very clearly set out in 
Sonnet 123, which I ask the reader to consider very care- 
fully ; and it is very easy to show by authority from whence 
Sidney derived the views expressed in that sonnet. He 
was instructed by Giordano Bruno, who visited England 
in 1583, residing for several years in London. 

Bourne, in his "Life of Sidney," states that on the 
evening of Ash Wednesday, 1584, Bruno was invited by 
Greville to meet Sidney and others to hear the reasons for 
his belief that the earth moves, and their meetings were 
frequent, for Bruno writes that, "We met in a chamber 
in Greville's house to discuss moral, metaphysical, mathe- 
matical, and natural speculations." Sidney imbibed his 
ideas and freely sympathized with him, and Bruno dedi- 
cated two of his books to Sidney. 

The 107th sonnet has received all kinds of strained 
and foolish interpretation. One writer calls Bacon " the 
mortal moon," and Massey, Minton, and Tyler say that 
the mortal moon referred to in the sonnet denoted Queen 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 245 

Elizabeth; but, viewed in the light which knowledge of 
the true author of the Sonnets sheds around them, it is 
clear that no man or woman is meant at all, but the great 
power of Turkey, represented by the crescent moon, which 
had then been humbled and crippled, and was no longer a 
disturbing element to either the Protestant or Papal 
world. Sidney had, from his first acquaintance with 
Languet, been so filled by him with news about thrones 
and dynasties and governmental complications that he 
could not keep Turkey out of his love sonnets; and so in 
the thirteenth sonnet of "Astrophel and Stella" he asks 
the question: 

"Whether the Turkish new moon minded be 
To fill her horns this year on Christian coasts?" 

Sonnets numbered 127, 128, 130, 131, and 132 clearly 
refer to Sidney's mistress, Penelope Rich, and he intimated 
that Dyer had supplanted him in her affections. 

In the 127th sonnet he describes a woman whose " eyes 
are raven black." So were Stella's eyes. She is nowhere 
in any of the Sonnets described as a black woman, save in 
her deeds. Sidney speaks of them thus : 

" When nature made her chief work, Stella's eyes, 
In color black, why wrapp't she beams so bright? 
Would she in heavy black, like painter wise 
Frame daintiest lustre, mix'd of shades and light?" 

I do not understand that Sidney, in sonnet 130, admits 
that his mistress is deficient in any particular of beauty 
or accomplishments. He had read (or his friend Spenser 
had read to him) the extravagant description of a woman 
whose eyes Spenser compared to the sun, her lips to coral, 



246 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

her brteasts to snow, her hair to wires, her cheeks to roses, 
her breath to perfumes, her speech to music, and her walk 
to that of a goddess, and in this sonnet, in a spirit of pleas- 
antry, he ridicules Spenser's bombastic description, and 
at the same time eulogizes his own beloved mistress. 
Here is Spenser's extravaganza: 

"Lo! where she comes along with portly pace, 
Like Phoebe, from her chamber of the East, 
Arising forth to run her mighty race, 
Clad all in white, that seems a virgin best, 
Her long, loose yellow locks like golden wire, 
Sprinkled with pearl and pearling flowers atween, 
Do like a golden mantle her attire, 
Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright, 
Her forehead ivory white, 

Her cheeks like apples, which the sun hath rudded, 
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite, 
Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncudded, 
Her paps like lilies budded, 
Her snowy neck like to a marble tower, 
And all her body like a palace fair, 
Ascending up with many a stately stair, 
To honor's seat and chastity's sweet bower." 

And Sidney, as I think, answers Spenser's extravagant 
eulogium of his mistress in the one hundred and thirtieth 
sonnet in a very modest way, thus : 

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; 
Coral is far more red than her lips red : 
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; 
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, 
But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 
And in some perfumes is there more delight 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 247 

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. 

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 

That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 

I grant I never saw a goddess go, — 

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground; 
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 
As any she bely'd with false compare." 

The next stanza very clearly shows what the allusions 
in the poet's mind to blackness really meant. The poet 
says: 

" In nothing art thou black, save in thy deeds, 
And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds." 

A little farther on he says: 

" Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, 
Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain, 
Have put on black, and loving mourners be, 
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain." 

Stella with her black eyes, lovely face, and bewitching 
form, was very beautiful indeed, but she was a bad woman, 
and no one can read " Astro phel and Stella" without 
believing that Stella had been to Sidney the object of a 
coarse passion. 

Her after life and her conduct with Charles Blount 
strongly testify against her. 

Speaking of Lady Rich's illicit amours, Brown, in his 
work on the Sonnets, at page 219, very accurately relates 
the facts as to the "Stella" of Philisides: 

"Lady Rich, while Sidney lived, gave scandal no 
tongue, but after his death, either through excessive grief, 
or hate of her lord, she forsook the path of virtue and fair 



248 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

fame, and eventually her husband behaved cruelly to her; 
abandoned her, though not without just cause, and treated 
her in a manner that drove her to despair and revenge. 
Neglected by her husband for years, she, following his 
example, transferred her affections to another: she gave 
her love to Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, who 
doted upon her, and after some years married her. But 
disaster now followed disaster. Elizabeth banished her 
the Court; but upon James coming to the crown 
she and Lord Mountjoy came again into high favor. 
Scandal, however, followed her, and the illegality of her 
marriage with the earl while her husband was still living, 
which had just been effected to put a good colour upon 
their illicit loving, was discussed; and the king, exceed- 
ingly wrathful, told Mountjoy that he had 'purchased a 
fair woman with a black soul,' and though Mountjoy, in 
a letter to the King, showed legal reasons sufficient to show 
his right to marry her, it would not avail. This was more 
than he could bear; he retired from Court, and was soon 
after taken with a severe illness, consequent on his excess- 
ive grief, and died. His wife attended him to the last, 
and never survived this disgrace; she died shortly after, 
in 1606. A relative of Mountjoy declared she had brought 
shame upon her and her whole kindred. It would seem 
that Mountjoy, though deluded with the belief, was not 
her only lover. It also appears, during the latter years of 
the time she spent under the roof of her first husband, 
that he was not so much the tyrant as tyrannized over; for 
she, at her own option, sometimes left her husband's roof, 
and returned again to it; and upon her first fit of love for 
Mountjoy, she left her husband to live with him, and upon 
his being sent, by order of the Queen, to Ireland to aid 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 249 

Essex to suppress the rebellion, she returned to her hus- 
band, though but to leave him on Mountjoy's return; 
and as remarked, she was not indifferent to the proffered 
love of others, though in a more guarded way. So, taking 
her for all in all, possibly no woman ever presented two 
such contrasted pictures, both in feature and in morals; 
she was radiant fair, yet intensely dark in the lustrous 
depth of her black eyes; she was, while Sidney lived, an 
example of virtue ; after his death, blot upon blot darkened 
her illicit loving, till she sunk, like a luminous star, from 
dazzling radiance to oblivious infamy." 

In this connection what Chambers, in his " Encyclopedia 
of English Literature," says of the Sonnets, is very appro- 
priate to Sidney's character. 

"We almost wish, with Mr. Hallam, that Shakespeare 
had not written these sonnets, beautiful as many of them 
are in language and imagery. They represent him in a 
character foreign to that in which we love to regard him 
— as modest, virtuous, self-confiding, and independent. 
His excessive and elaborate praise of youthful beauty in a 
man seems derogatory to his genius, and savors of adula- 
tion; and when we find him excuse this friend for robbing 
him of his mistress— a married female — and subjecting 
his noble spirit to all the pangs of jealousy, of guilty love, 
and blind, misplaced attachment, it is painful and difficult 
to believe that all this weakness and folly can be associated 
with the name of Shakespeare." 

I will now explain how a bookseller could get possession 
of Sidney's "Sonnets" without authority. None of 
Sidney's works were published until long after his death. 
His poetry was circulated privately among his friends 
for several years, precisely as were the "sugared sonnets" 



250 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

which Meres describes. Sidney died on the 17th day of 
October, 1586, and the " Arcadia" was not published until 
1590. His friend Greville, in a letter to Walsingham, 
preserved in the State Paper Office, throws light on the 
way that booksellers then got possession of manuscripts : 

"Sir, this day one Ponsonby, a bookbinder in Paul's 
churchyard, came to me and told me that there was one 
in hand to print Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia,' asking 
me if it were done with your honor's consent, or any other 
of his friends. I told him to my knowledge, no; then he 
advised me to give warning of it to the Archbishop or 
Doctor Cosen, who have, as he says, a copy of it to peruse 
to that end," etc. 

When we consider that Sidney did not desire that his 
poetry should be published, and that after he was mortally 
wounded at Zutphen, he asked that the "Arcadia" might 
be destroyed, and when we consider further that his poetry 
circulated for years among his friends and acquaintances 
with no special curator or preserver of it, we can under- 
stand how the booksellers could get a copy of his sonnets 
for publication in another's name. 

The writer of the Shake-speare Sonnets, like Sidney, 
seems to have had no expectation nor desire that they 
should be published, for in sonnet 17 he writes: 

" So should my papers, yellowed with their age 
Be scorn' d, like old men of less truth than tongue." 

He looked no farther than to the limit of their existence 
in manuscript. 

With all his faults, and he had many of them, Sidney 
was a great and gallant man. Greville says that, as he 
was leaving the battlefield of Zutphen, wounded and 



PHILISIDES WROTE THE SONNETS. 251 

thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for some drink, 
which was brought to him; but as he was putting the 
bottle to his mouth he saw a poor wounded soldier carried 
along, longingly casting up his eyes at the bottle. Sir 
Philip thereupon took it from his mouth before he drank, 
and delivered it to the poor man with the words: "Thy 
necessity is yet greater than mine . ' ' Tristram, in the English 
Illustrated Magazine, thus beautifully points out the quali- 
ties which distinguish him from his contemporaries: 

"It was not only that he united in one character the 
wisdom of a grave councilor and the romantic chivalry of a 
knight errant; it was not only that his genius and his 
learning made him the center of the great literary world 
which was at the moment springing into birth; it was not 
only that, friend of England's most imaginary poet, he, 
too, was gifted with the magic virtue, with the power to 
see the beauty which the eye can not see, and to hear that 
music only heard in silence ; these qualities he shared with 
his contemporaries. In Raleigh's blood the tide of romance 
beat as strongly; Essex was as brilliant an ornament to 
the Court and a more munificent patron of genius ; Drake 
showed as dauntless a courage in the face of his country's 
foes. But in the spiritual elevation of character which 
rose far above the standard of the age, and to which none 
of his contemporaries attained, Sidney stands alone. He 
was the bright figure of Christian chivalry in times full of 
grossness. He was the Bayard of an age in which most 
men knew no fear, but in which he alone among them was 
without reproach." 

The reader will now understand why I do not invite 
him to try the Sonnets as a pathway to the authorship of 
the plays and poems. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE VENUS AND ADONIS TEST EXPLAINED. 

" Bring me to the test." 

— Hamlet, iii, 4. 

No question of collaboration can possibly arise respect- 
ing the authorship of the poem of Venus and Adonis. 
I am certain that all scholars will agree with me that one 
man, and one man only, composed that poem. If, now, 
that man can be identified as, and indubitably shown 
to be the actual author of the poem, then the Shakespeare 
controversy will be conclusively and correctly settled. If 
a man named William Shaksper, of Stratford-on-Avon, 
wrote the Venus and Aclonis or the Tarquin and Lucrece, 
or both of these poems, he also unquestionably wrote 
the most important and best portions of the so-called 
Shakespeare plays. But if it should appear that the real 
writer of the two poems or of either of them was not 
William Shaksper of Stratford, but a very different indi- 
vidual who merely assumed the name of William Shake- 
speare (not Shaksper or Shakspere) as a pseudonym, then 
the Shaksper of Stratford could not have been either 
the writer of the poems or of any part of the plays. 

It will be observed that in the dedications to the poems 
the name is printed thus, "William Shakespeare." Since 
Shaksper, in his will and in the mortgage and deed, wrote 
his name "Shaksper," it is right to presume that if he had 
dedicated a poem to the Earl of Southampton, he would 
have spelled his own name correctly. The inferior in 
station, seeking to conciliate and please a patron very 



THE VENUS AND ADONIS TEST. 253 

greatly his superior in station, would ex necessitate spell 
his own name aright. While on this subject of the name, 
it is worthy of remark that no poem or play was ever 
attributed or conceded to William Shaksper or Shakspere 
by any printer or publisher. In the two poems, the name 
of William Shakespeare is used. In Love's Labor's Lost, 
printed in 1598, the name used is "Shakespere." In the 
Hamlet of 1603, it is again different, being printed thus: 
"Shake-speare," the Shake and speare being separated by 
a hyphen. So also in the last-named way the word is 
spelled in Richard the Second, printed in 1598; in Richard 
the Third, printed in 1598; in Henry the Fourth, printed 
in 1599; in the Shake-speare Sonnets, printed in 1609; 
and in Romeo and Juliet. In the other plays the word 
used is either "Shakespere" or " Shake-speare," but never 
" Shaksper." It is easy, very easy, to say that the printers 
and publishers were to blame for this egregious blunder, 
and that Shaksper took so little pride in his productions 
that he did not care to correct the mistakes in the spelling 
of his name by others, but that apology or attempted 
explanation, lame as it is, will not and can not apply as 
to the spelling by Shaksper of his own name. 

It must be borne in mind by the reader that, as to the 
authorship of the two poems, I only give my opinion, 
based upon facts and circumstances as I have traced 
them, trusting that if I am right the reader and other 
students of English literature, who have more learning 
and leisure than I have, will make the title of the real 
author more complete and perfect; and being very willing 
to acknowledge my error if I am shown to be wrong in any 
statement or conclusion. I shall be content if I have 
aided the future discoverer of the truth in clearing and 



254 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

illuminating the pathway to the real authorship. It will 
be understood, of course, that the discovery of the author 
of the poems would entitle the author to be the Shakespeare 
whom the world honors for his magnificent poetry, and 
desires to honor without mistake or cavil as to his identity. 

The interesting, important, and vital question is this: 
What English writer can be found whose words, sentences, 
phrases, peculiar expressions, and style coalesce and har- 
monize with the same eltnents in the poems and plays? 
Such a man, if found, should be a poet of the first class; 
he should have a suitable and reliable birth-date and birth- 
place, a good education, not necessarily collegiate; intense 
application, great industry, acquaintance and even inti- 
macy with scholars and noblemen, and familiarity also 
with courts and the customs and fashions of courts; he 
should be what is called a Protestant and a churchman; 
he should be an admirer of the gentle sex; he should be a 
user of Saxon words and Latin and Greek derivatives, 
and a maker and coiner of new and appropriate words; 
and he should be a man who was thoroughly familiar with 
every part and parcel of England and her history, as well 
as of her antecedent great men, both in Church and State. 

The poem of Venus and Adonis, issued in 1593, contains 
one hundred and ninety-nine stanzas, each having six 
lines of ten syllables, the first four alternating and the 
last two making a rhyming couplet. It is an amatory 
poem after Ovid, unquestionably written by a scholar 
who was possessed of the true poetic fire; and the poem, 
which is of the lascivious type, must have been very 
popular in the latter part of the Sixteenth Century. It is 
exceedingly well constructed and is rich in poetic imagery. 
Whatever may be said of the plays or parts of them as to 



THE VENUS AND ADONIS TEST. 255 

the learning or ignorance of their composers, it is indis- 
putable that no one but a learned man could have written 
the Venus and Adonis. Clark's testimony as to elegance 
and predilection, and Reed's panegyric as to the highest 
culture and use of scholarly English in its composition, 
can not be disputed. 

The first edition in quarto was soon exhausted and it 
was republished in quarto by the same printer, Richard 
Field, in 1594. An octavo edition was printed by Field 
for John Harrison in 1596, and Harrison published another 
in 1600. According to Collier, copies exist of editions of 
1602, 1616, and 1620; and John Wreittoun, of Edin- 
burgh, printed an edition in 1627. The popularity of the 
poem is evidenced not only by these repeated publica- 
tions, but also by the frequent mention of it by contem- 
porary writers. It is alluded to in Peele's "Merry Con- 
ceited Jests," published in 1607, and in the same year 
by Thomas Heywood in his play of " The Fair Maid of the 
Exchange." Richard Barnfield noticed it in 1598; and 
William Barksted mentions it in 1607 in his "Myrrha, 
the mother of Adonis." In the "Return from Parnassus" 
there is a distinct poetical allusion to it. The poem is 
prefaced by a Latin quotation from Ovid. A dedication 
also is prefixed, as follows: 

" To the right honourable Henry Wriothesly, 

Earl of Southampton and Baron of Tichfield. 
"Right Honorable: I know not how I shall offend in 
dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how 
the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to 
support so weak a burden ; only, if your honour seem but 
pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take 



256 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with 
some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention 
prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god- 
father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it 
yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honour- 
able survey, and your honour to your heart's content; 
which I wish may always answer your own wish and the 
world's hopeful expectation. 

" Your honour's in all duty, 

" William Shakespeare." 

In order to form an opinion as to the authorship of the 
Venus and Adonis, it was necessary to make an alphabeti- 
cal list of the peculiar words, double-words, sentences, 
and turns of expression to be found in the poem, and 
then to make a detailed and careful examination of them. 
After that was accomplished, the matter of a comparison 
with the works of the great poets of that era confronted 
me, and I made a list of them for that purpose. Very 
soon I found upon examination that the names of very 
many of the writers whom I had selected could be elimi- 
nated, because their writings were not of the amatory 
class. I took it for granted that the writer had learning 
as well as poetic fire, for "the first heir of my invention" 
shows thorough scholarship. The list therefore gradually 
narrowed down to a select few, whom I have arranged 
alphabetically, namely — Francis Bacon, Francis Beau- 
mont, George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, 
Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Thomas Middleton, 
and John Webster. These were all learned men, with the 
requisite ability, poetical talent, and classical attainments. 
They were, one and all, intellectual giants. 



THE VENUS AND ADONIS TEST. 257 

Before proceeding further, I ought to state that it 
would be unprofitable as well as uninteresting to the 
reader to give the detailed statement of the trial tests 
which resulted in the failure to identify any one or more 
of those on the list above given, as the author of the poem. 
As the reader and I have no particular sympathy for, or 
prejudice against, any one of these poets, it will suffice 
if the processes are set out and the methods shown 
by means of which the authorship of the poem was 
arrived at. 

Francis Beaumont was the friend, associate, and 
mentor of Ben Jonson and the reputed author of the 
amatory poem of "Salmacis and Hermaphroditus " ; but 
he could not have been the author of Venus and Adonis, 
for he was too young in the year 1593 to possess the ability 
to write poetry at all. 

Then came George Chapman, who took up Marlowe's 
unfinished poem of "Hero and Leander," beginning as to 
his share in the composition with the third Sestiad, thereby 
making it a complete poem. A comparison of his portion 
of the poem with my index showed me conclusively, as it 
will show the reader, that he could not have been the 
William Shakespeare of the Venus and Adonis. One short 
extract from the poem will give the reader who is not able 
to find the entire poem of "Hero and Leander" clear and 
convincing proof that Chapman's style and mode of expres- 
sion (beautiful and stately as it is) would not fit the author 
of Venus and Adonis. This quotation also shows the 
reader that Chapman had conferred with Marlowe about 
the unfinished poem, which Chapman felt constrained, 
either from friendship or by reason of a direct request 
from Marlowe, to finish after Marlowe's death. 



258 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

" Now, as swift as time 
Doth follow motion, find the eternal clime 
Of his free soul, whose living subject stood 
Up to his chin in the Pierian flood, 
And drunk to me half this mussean story, 
Inscribing it in deathless memory. 
Confer with it and make my pledge as deep 
That neither's draught be consecrate to sleep 
Tell it how much his late desires I tender, 
If yet it know not, and to light surrender 
My soul's dark offspring, willing it should die 
To love, to passion and society." 

Then there was John Marston, who wrote the love poem 
of Pygmalion after the manner of Venus and Adonis. But 
his poem, contrasted with the Venus and Adonis, is as 
cold as the statue which Pygmalion chiseled, before it 
was warmed into life for him. Two stanzas from the poem 
of Marston will clearly illustrate the point: 

" Pygmalion, whose high love-hating mind 
Disdained to yield servile affection 
Of amorous suit to any woman-kind, 
Knowing their wants and men's perfection; 
Yet love at length forced him to know his fate, 
And love the shade whose substance he did hate. 

For having wrought in ivory 

So fair an image of a woman's feature, 

That never yet proudest mortality 

Could show so rare and beauteous a creature, 
Unless my mistress' all-excelling face 
Which gives to beauty beauty's only grace." 

As to Beaumont, Chapman, and Marston, I will add 
that, while every student of English literature will admit 



THE VENUS AND ADONIS TEST. 259 

their ability as well as the greatness of their poetical talent 
and classical attainments, they nowhere betray them- 
selves in any part of their works as originators or even 
imitators of the words, phrases, and peculiar turns of 
expression in the Venus and Adonis. 

Christopher Marlowe then came in his turn. The sub- 
ject was in his line of thought and worthy of his " mighty 
line." It was Marlowe, as Drayton beautifully puts it, who 

" Bathed in the Thespian spring, 
Had in him those brave translunary things 
That the first poets had. His raptures were 
All air and fire, which made his verses clear." 

His leading motive, as Symonds says, was the love or 
lust of unattainable things. He deserves in every way, 
as a prince of poets, the panegyric which Bullen has 
bestowed upon him: 

" Never was a poet fired with a more intense aspiration 
for ideal beauty and ideal power. As some adventurous 
Greek of old might have sailed away, with warning voices 
in his ears, past the pillars of Hercules in quest of fabled 
islands beyond the sun, so Marlowe started on his lonely 
course, careless of tradition and restraint, resolved to seek 
and find some world far from ours, where the secret spring 
of knowledge should be opened and he should touch the 
lips of beauty." 

A specimen of his style may be found in the following 
lines copied from his Faustus: 

" Was this the face that launched a thousand ships 
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? 
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. 
Her lips suck forth my soul ; see where it flies ! 



260 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
Here will I dwell, for heaven is on these lips, 
And all is dross that is not Helena. 
0, thou art fairer than the evening air, 
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ; 
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter 
When he appeared to hapless Semele; 
More lovely than the monarch of the sky 
In wanton Arethusa's azure arms." 

But Marlowe died on the first day of June, 1593, and 
hence the Venus and Adonis could not have been written 
by him, since the writer thereof declares in his dedication 
that the poem with its unpolished lines is "the first heir 
of my invention." Since the poem was registered on 
April 18, 1593, it could not possibly have been a poem 
of Marlowe, for he had written many poems and plays 
previous to that date. It could not have been the first 
heir of his invention. 

The same tests which were applied to Beaumont, Chap- 
man, Marlowe, and Marston were applied also to Thomas 
Middleton and John Webster, and with the same result, 
thus narrowing the number of contestants to three — 
Francis Bacon, Thomas Dekker, and Michael Drayton. 

It is a matter to be considered as to the Venus and 
Adonis as well as the poem called Tarquin and Lucrece 
that although they were apparently dedicated by a person 
whose name was very much like that of William Shaksper, 
yet, in the Folio of 1623, they were entirely unnoticed and 
omitted by Heminge and Condell, who professed that they 
were the guardians for Shaksper's orphan productions and 
that it was their province to gather his works. 

If the syndicate of publishers named in the Folio pro- 
cured the plays from the two players, the conclusion would 



THE VENUS AND ADONIS TEST. 261 

be natural that they gathered them together as the prop- 
erty of William Shaksper, the theatrical manager, whose 
rights in them were as absolute and good as the title to 
Henslowe's plays was in him. That is to say, if they were 
bought from the playwriters and fully paid for, and 
Heminge and Condell took the trouble to collect them, 
that would account for the failure to include the two poems 
among the works of Shaksper, since he had never purchased 
the poems from any one. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN THE PLAYS. 

"Good phrases are surely, and ever were very commendable." 

—Second Henry IV, iii, 2. 

To enable the reader to judge for himself as to the 
resemblance between the words and phrases in the poem 
of Venus and Adonis and the plays which Meres enumer- 
ates as written by Shakespeare before the year 1598, I 
cite the following examples of similarity between the poem 
and the plays. They should be carefully examined and 
scrutinized by the studious reader. I am taking it for 
granted, as heretofore stated, that the Venus and Adonis 
was written by one man and one man only, and as I main- 
tain the proposition that the plays embody the words and 
thoughts of several writers, the discovery of the writer of 
the poem will greatly aid in leading us to the discovery of 
the man who was the true Shakespeare. To avoid the 
charge of tediousness, I will cite only enough of resembling 
words and phrases to satisfy the reader that the author of 
the poem was a principal writer of the plays. 

I first give the phrase or word to be particularly noted, 
and then under it, the resembling sentences. 

ABOVE COMPARE. 

"The field's chief flower, sweet above compare." 

—Venus and Adonis, 8. 

"Which she hath praised him with above compare." 

—Romeo and Juliet, iii, 5. 
ALL COMPACT OF. 

•'Love is a spirit all compact of fire." 

—Venus and Adonis, 149. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 263 

" Are of imagination all compact." 

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, iv, 1. 

"If he, compact of jaw, grows musical." 

—As You Like It, ii, 7. 
ALL SWOLLEN. 

"All swol'n with chafing, down Adonis sits." 

—Venus and Adonis, 325. 

"All swol'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye." 

—Macbeth, iv, 3. 
AN EMPTY EAGLE. 

"Even as an empty eagle sharp by fast." 

—Venus and Adonis, 55. 

"Wert not all one, an empty eagle were set." 

—Third Henry VI, iii, 1. 

" And like an empty eagle, 
Tire on the flesh of me and of my son." 

—Third Henry VI, iii, 1. 

annoy (as a noun). 
"But now I liv'd and life was death's annoy." 

—Venus and Adonis, 497. 

"Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy." 

—Richard III, v, 3. 
ANTHEM. 

" Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe." 

—Venus and Adonis, 839. 

"As ending anthem of my endless dolor." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 1. 
ANY JOT. 

" If springing things be any jot diminished." 

—Venus and Adonis, 417. 

"Than in possession any jot of pleasure." 

—Third Henry VI, iv, 2. 
AT RANDOM. 

" But hatefully at random dost thou hit." 

—Venus and Adonis, 940. 



264 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"And the great care of goods at random left." 

—Comedy of Errors, i, 1. 

"I writ at random, very doubtfully." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii, 1. 
BATE-BREEDING. 

"This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy." 

— Venus and Adonis, 655. 

" Breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories." 

—Second Henry IV, ii, 4. 
BATTERED SHIELD. 

"His battered shield, his uncontrolled crest." 

—Venus and Adonis, 104. 

"Than foeman's marks upon his battered shield." 

—Titus Andronicus, iv, 1. 
BEPAINTED. 

"Whose pretty mouth bepainted all with red." 

—Venus and Adonis, 901 . 

"Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek." 

—Romeo and Juliet, ii, 2. 
BUT ALL IN VAIN. 

" But all in vain, good queen, it will not be." 

—Venus and Adonis, 607. 

"But all in vain are these mean obsequies." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 

" But all in vain, they had no heart to fight." 

—Third Henry VI, iii, 2, 

"Till Hymen's torch be lighted, but in vain." 

—The Tempest, iv, 1. 
BY SUBTILTY. 

"Or as the fox, which lives by subtilty." 

—Venus and Adonis, 675. 

"Be it by gins, by snares, by subtilty." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 1. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 265 
CATERPILLARS. 

" As caterpillars do the tender leaves." 

—Venus and Adonis, 798. 

"And caterpillars eat my leaves away." 

—Second Henry VI, ii, 4. 
CHAFES HER LIPS. 

"He chafes her lips, a thousand ways he seeks." 

—Venus and Adonis, 477. 

"Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 
CHAOS COME AGAIN. 

"And beauty dead, black chaos comes again." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1020. 

"And when I love thee not, chaos is come again." 

—Othello, iii, 3. 
CHEERING UP. 

"Till cheering up her senses all dismay'd." 

—Venus and Adonis, 996. 

"Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers." 

—Richard III, v, 3. 
CHURLISH DRUM. 

"Scorning her churlish drum and ensign red." 

—Venus and Adonis, 107. 

The interruption of their churlish drums." 

—King John, ii, 1. 



a 



CLOSURE. 

"Into the quiet closure of my breast." 

—Venus and Adonis, 782. 

"Within the guilty closure of thy walls." 

—Richard III, iii, 3. 
COAL-BLACK. 

"And coal-black clouds, that shadow heaven's light." 

—Venus and Adonis, 533. 



266 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor." 

— Titus Andronicus, iii, 2. 

"Coal-black is better than another hue." 

—Titus Andronicus, iv, 2. 
COLD FAULT. 

" With much ado the cold fault cleanly out." 

—Venus and Adonis, 694. 

" Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good 
At the hedge corner in the coldest fault?" 

—Taming of the Shrew, Ind., 20. 
COMES STEALING. 

"How she came stealing to the wayward boy." 

—Venus and Adonis, 344. 

"That time comes stealing on by day and night." 

—Comedy of Errors, iv, 1. 
CONGEALED BLOOD. 

" And stains his face with her congealed blood." 

— Venus and Adonis, 1122. 

"Thy tears would wash the cold congealed blood." 

—Third Henry VI, i, 1. 
COPE HIM. 

"They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first." 

—Venus and Adonis, 888. 

"They say he yesterday coped Hector in the battle." 

— Troilus and Cressida, i, 2. 
COPIOUS. 

"Their copious stories oftentimes begun." 

—Venus and Adonis, 845. 

"I hear his drum; be copious in exclaims." 

—Richard III, iv, 4. 

curst (meaning fierce). 
"Finding their enemy to be so curst." 

—Venus and Adonis, 887. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 267 

"They are never curst but when they are hungry." 

—The Winter's Tale, iii, 3. 

"In faith, she's too curst." 

—Much Ado About Nothing, ii, 1. 
DEFEATURE. 

"And pure perfection with impure defeature." 

—Venus and Adonis, 736. 

"Then is he the ground of my defeature." 

—Comedy of Errors, ii, 1. 
DEW-BEDABBLED. 

"Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch." 

—Venus and Adonis, 703. 

"Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briars." 

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, iii, 2. 
DOTETH. 

" Dumbly she passions, frantickly she doteth." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1059. 

"So much she doteth on her Mortimer." 

—First Henry IV, iii, 1. 
EAR THE LAND. 

" And never after ear so barren a land." 

—Venus and Adonis, Ded. 

" And let them go to ear the land." 

—King John, iii, 2. 

" He that ears my land." 

—All's Well that Ends Well, i, 3. 
ENGINE OF HER THOUGHTS. 

" Once more the engine of her thoughts began." 

—Venus and Adonis, 367. 

" ! that delightful engine of her thoughts." 

— Titus Andronicus, iii, 1. 
EXCEEDS COMMISSION. 

"Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission." 

—Venus and Adonis, 568. 

"Let not her penance exceed the King's commission." 

—Second Henry VI, ii, 4. 



268 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

FAIR BREEDER. 

"Of the fair breeder that is standing by." 

—Venus and Adonis, 367. 

" Among the fairest breeders of our clime." 

—Titus Andronicus, III, 1. 
FAIR FALL. 

/'Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her." 

—Venus and Adonis, 472. 

" Fair fall the face it covers." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, ii, 1. 
FIE, FIE. 

" Fie, fie, fond love, thou art so full of fears." 

— Venus and Adonis, 533. 

"Fie, fie, he says, you crush me, let me go." 

—Venus and Adonis, 611. 

"Fie, fie, on all tired jades." 

—Taming of the Shrew, iv, 1. 

"Fie, fie, unknit that threatening, unkind brow." 

—Taming of the Shrew, v, 2. 

"Fie, fie upon her." 

— Troilus and Cressida, iv, 5. 
FLEET-FOOT ROE. 

"Or as the fleet-foot roe that's tired with chasing." 

— Venus and Adonis, 560. 

"As breathed stags, aye, fleeter than the roe." 

—Taming of the Shrew, Ind. 

" Whip to our tents as roes run o'er the land." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, V, 2. 
FLYING HARE. 

"Having the fearful, flying hare in sight." 

—Venus and Adonis, 674. 

"Uncouple at the timorous flying hare." 

—Third Henry VI, ii, 5. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 269 
FULL PERFECTION. 

"Whose full perfection all the world amazes." 

—Venus and Adonis, 634. 

"Whose fullness of perfection lies in him." 

—King John, ii, 1. 
GLISTER LIKE. 

" His eyes which scornfully glister like fire." 

—Venus and Adonis, 275. 

"Away and glister like the god of war." 

—King John, v, 1. 
GUISE. 

"This was thy father's guise." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1177. 

"This is her very guise." 

—Macbeth, v, 1. 
HARSH SOUNDING. 

" Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh sounding." 

—Venus and Adonis, 431. 

"To whom he sung in rude, harsh-sounding rhyme." 

—King John, iv, 2. 



heart's attorney (the tongue) 
en the heart's attorney once is 

— Veni 

" Windy attorneys to their client's woes. 



"But when the heart's attorney once is mute." 

—Venus and Adonis, 335. 



Richard HI, iv, 4. 

heart's CONTENT. 
"And your honour to your heart's content." 

—Venus and Adonis, Ded. 

"Such is the fullness of my heart's content." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 

"Then though my heart's content from love doth bear.' 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, i, 1. 



270 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



I ACCOUNT MYSELF. 

"I account myself highly pleased." 

—Venus and Adonis, Ded. 

"0, thou, whose captain I account myself." 

—Richard III, v, 2. 
I MUST CONFESS. 

"Then, gentle shadow, truth I must confess." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1001. 

"Myself am struck in years, I must confess." 

—Taming of the Shrew, ii, 1. 

"I must confess your offer is the best." 

—Taming of the Shrew, ii, 1. 
I PROPHESY. 

" Since thou art dead, lo, here I prophesy." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1135. 

"I prophesy the fearfulest time to thee." 

— Eichard III, iii, 4. 

"And here I prophesy the brawl to-day." 

—First Henry VI, ii, 4. 

"And thus I prophesy that many thousand." 

—Third Henry VI, i, 6. 
IDLE HOURS. 

"And vow to take advantage of all idle hours." 

—Venus and Adonis, Ded. 

"Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down." 

—Richard II, iii, 4. 
IDLE THEME. 

"And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat." 

—Venus and Adonis, 422. 

" And this weak and idle theme." 

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, v, 2. 
IMAGINARY. 

"All is imaginary, she doth prove." 

—Venus and Adonis, 597. 

" The imaginary relish is so sweet." 

— Troilus and Cressida, iii, 2. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 271 



IN DESPITE. 

"Wherein she framed thee in high heaven's despite." 

—Venus and Adonis, 721. 

''Therefore, despite of fruitless chastity." 

—Venus and Adonis, 750. 

"In despite of the flesh and blood." 

—Taming of the Shrew, Ind. 
IN SPITE OF. 

"And so in spite of death, thou dost survive." 

—Venus and Adonis, 173. 

"In spite of pope or dignities of church." 

—First Henry VI, i, 3. 

"In spite of us or aught that we could do." 

—First Henry VI, i, 5. 
IT CAN NOT BE. 

"If he be dead, no, it can not be." 

—Venus and Adonis, 637. 

"It can not be, it is impossible." 

—Love'* Labor's Lost, v, 2. 

"It can not be, but he was murdered here." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 

"It can not be, but I am pigeon livered." 

—Hamlet, ii, 2. 
KEEP HIS REVELS. 

"Love keeps his revels where there are but twain." 

—Venus and Adonis, 123. 

"The king doth keep his revels here to-night." 

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, ii, 1. 
KIND EMBRACEMENTS. 

" Beating his kind embracements with her heels." 

—Venus and Adonis. 312. 

" And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses.' 

—Taming of the Shrew, Ind. 

"Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse." 

—The Comedy of Errors, i, 1. 



272 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



LIVELIHOOD. 

"The precedent of pith and livelihood." 

— Venus and Adonis, 26. 

"Takes all livelihood from her cheek." 

—All's Well that Ends Well, i, 1. 
LOUD ALARUMS. 

"Anon, then loud alarums he doth hear." 

—Venus and Adonis, 700. 

"To endure her loud alarums." 

— Taming of the Shrew, i, 1. 
LUSTY, YOUNG. 

"A breeding jennet, lusty, young and proud." 

—Venus and Adonis, 260. 

"But lusty, young and cheerly drawing breath." 

—King John, i, 3. 
MAKE USE. 

"Make use and time, let not advantage slip." 

—Venus and Adonis, 129. 

''Make use and fair advantage of his days." 

— Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii, 4. 
MAKES AMAIN. 

" Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him." 

—Venus and Adonis, 5. 

"Two ships from far making amain unto us." 

— The Comedy of Errors, i, 1. 
MEAGRE. 

" Hard-favored tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean." 

—Venus and Adonis, 781. 

"Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless." 

— Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 

mermaid's VOICE. 
"Thy mermaid's voice hath done me double wrong." 

—Venus and Adonis, 429. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 273 

"Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's song." 

— Venus and Adonis, 777. 

"0! train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iii, 2. 

" I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iii, 2. 
MOIST HAND. 

"My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt." 

—Venus and Adonis, 143. 

"Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady." 

—Othello, iii, i. 
NAUGHT ESTEEMS. 

" Alas, he naught esteems that face of thine." 

—Venus and Adonis, 631. 

"And naught esteems my aged eloquence." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 1. 
NIGHT WANDERERS. 

" Or 'stonish'd as night wanderers often are." 

—Venus and Adonis, 825. 

"Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm." 

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, ii, 1. 
NO MARVEL. 

"Therefore no marvel, though thy horse be gone." 

—Venus and Adonis, 390. 

"Therefore no marvel, though Demetrius do." 

—A Midsummer Night's Dream, ii. 3. 
NOT GROSS TO SINK. 

"Not gross to sink, but light and will aspire." 

—Venus and Adonis, 150. 

"Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iii, 2. 
O, FAIREST MOVER. 

"0, fairest mover on this mortal round." 

—Venus and Adonis, 368. 

"0, thou eternal mover of the heavens." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 3. 



274 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

O JOVE. 

"0 Jove, quoth she, how much a fool was I." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1015. 

"Ah me, says one, Jove, the other cries." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 3. 
OBDURATE, FLINTY. 

"Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel." 

—Venus and Adonis, 199. 

"Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless." 

—Third Henry VI, i, 4. 
OF TEEN. 

" My face is full of shame, my heart of teen." 

—Venus and Adonis, 608. 

" Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 3. 
OLD, WRINKLED. 

" Were I hard favor'd, foul or wrinkled old." 

—Venus and Adonis, 133. 

"This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered." 

—Taming of the Shrew, iv, 5. 
PEEVISH, SULLEN, FROWARD. 

"Or like the froward infant, stilled with dandling." 

—Venus and Adonis, 562. 

"No trust me, she is peevish, sullen, froward." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 1. 

"And when she's froward, peevish, sullen, sour." 

—Taming of the Shrew, v, 2. 
PITCHY. 

"So did the merciless and pitchy night." 

—Venus and Adonis, 821 . 

"But I will sort a pitchy day for thee." 

—Third Henry VI, i, 6. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 275 



PLUCK DOWN. 

" Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasure." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1156. 

"Ajax employed, plucks down Achilles' plume." 

— Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 
PRIMROSE BANK. 

" Witness this primrose bank, whereon I lie." 

—Venus and Adonis, 151. 

"Upon faint primrose beds, were wont to lie." 

— A Midsummer Night's Dream, i, 1. 
PURPLE TEARS. 

" With purple tears that his wound wept, was drench'd." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1054. 

"0, may such purple tears be always shed." 

—Third Henry VI, i, 6. 
RAGING MAD. 

"It shall be raging mad and silly mild." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1145. 

"Where from thy sight, I should be raging mad." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 
RECURES. 

" A smile recures the wounding of a frown." 

—Venus and Adonis, 465. 

"Which to recure, we heartily solicit." 

—Richard III. iii, 7. 
SCARCITY. 

"That on the earth would breed a scarcity." 

— Venus and Adonis, 1150. 

"Now heaven forbid such scarcity of youth." 

—Troilus and Cressida, i, 3. 
SEAL-MANUAL. 

" Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips." 

—Venus and Adonis, 516. 

"There is my gage, the manual seal of death." 

—Richard II, iv, 1. 



276 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



SET A GLOSS. 

"Set gloss on the rose, smell to the violet." 

—Venus and Adonis, 936. 

"To set a gloss upon his bold intent." 

—First Henry VI, iv, 1. 
SILLY LAMB. 

" And never fright the silly lamb that day." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1098. 

"To shepherds looking on their silly sheep." 

—Third Henry VI, ii, 5. 
SPEND THEIR MOUTHS. 

"Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies." 

—Venus and Adonis, 695. 

" For coward dogs 
Must spend their mouths when what they seem to 
threaten." 

—Henry V, ii, 4. 
STAIN TO. 

"Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man." 

—Venus and Adonis, 9. 

"Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy doom." 

—Henry VIII, iv, 1. 
STRIKE DUMB. 

" Strike the wise dumb and teach the fool to speak." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1146. 

"Deep shame hath struck me dumb." 

—King John, iv, 2. 
SUCH-LIKE. 

"In such-like circumstance with such-like sport." 

—Venus and Adonis, 844. 

"And I, for such-like petty crimes as these." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv, I. 

"Youth, liberality, and suchlike." 

— Troilus and Cressida, i, 2. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 277 

"And even with such-like valor." 

—The Tempest, iii, 3. 

"These as I learn and such-like toys as these." 

—Richard III, i, 1. 

"And many such like." 

—Hamlet, v, 2. 
SUFFERED. 

" Else suffered, it will set the heart on fire." 

—Venus and Adonis, 388. 

"Which being suffered, rivers can not quench." 

—Third Henry VI, iv, 8. 

suspect (as a noun). 
"Her rash suspect, she doth extenuate." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1106. 

"He lived from all attainder of suspect." 

—Richard III, iii, 5. 

"And draw within the compass of suspect." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iii, 1. 
SWEATING PALM. 

"With this, she seizeth on his sweating palm." 

—Venus and Adonis, 25. 

" Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication." 

—Antony and Cleopatra, i, 2. 
SWEET BOY. 

"Sweet boy, she says, this night I'll waste in sorrow." 

—Venus and Adonis, 583. 

"And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope." 

—Titus Andronicus, iv, 1. 

"My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre." 

—Third Henry VI, ii, 5. 
TAKE TRUCE. 

"Till he take truce with her contending tears." 

—Venus and Adonis, 82. 

"Could not take truce with the unruly spleen." 

—Romeo and Juliet, ii, 1. 



278 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



TENDER HORNS. 

"Or, as the snail, whose tender horns being hit." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1033. 

"Than are the tender horns of cockled snails." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, iv, 3. 
THE VERY LIST. 

"Now is she in the very lists of love." 

—Venus and Adonis, 595. 

" The very list, the utmost bound." 

—First Henry IV, iv, 1. 
THROBBING HEART. 

"My throbbing heart shall rock thee, day and night." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1186. 

"Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast." 

Second Henry VI, iv, 4. 
TIMOROUS YELPING. 

"Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds." 

—Venus and Adonis, 881. 

" A little herd of England's timorous deer 
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs." 

—First Henry VI, iv, 2. 
TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF. 

"And vow to take advantage of all idle hours." 

— Venus and Adonis, Ded. 

"Take all the swift advantage of the hours." 

—Richard III, iv, 1. 

"Speed thou to take advantage of the field." 

—King John, ii, 1. 
TO THE DISPOSING OF. 

"To the disposing of her troubled brain." 

—Venus and Adonis, 1040. 

" To the disposing of the Cardinal." 

—King John, v, 7. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 279 



TREMBLING ECSTASY. 

"Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy." 

—Venus and Adonis, 895. 

"Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iv, 4. 
TREMBLING JOINTS. 

"I fear'd thy fortune, and my joints did tremble." 

—Venus and Adonis, 642. 

"A chilling sweat o'erruns my trembling joints." 

—Titus Andronicus, ii, 3. 
TRODDEN ON. 

"For misery is trodden on by many." 

—Venus and Adonis, 707. 

"For though the camomile, the more it is trodden on." 

—First Henry IV, ii, 4. 

"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on." 

—Third Henry VI, ii, 2. 

"Where stained nobility is trodden on." 

—First Henry IV, v, 4. 
TRUE MEN THIEVES. 

"Rich preys make true men thieves: so do thy lips." 

—Venus and Adonis, 724. 

"The thieves have bound the true men." 

—First Henry IV, ii, 3. 
TWENTY THOUSAND. 

"If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues." 

—Venus and Adonis, 775. 

"And in possession, twenty thousand crowns." 

— Taming of the Shrew, ii, 1. 

"Unto their losses, twenty thousand crowns." 

—Taming of the Shrew, v, 2. 
TWENTY TIMES. 

" And twenty echoes, twenty times cry so." 

—Venus and Adonis, 834. 



280 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"But twenty times so much upon my wife." 

—Taming of the Shrew, v, 2. 

"Not once or twice, but twenty times you have." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iii, 2. 
UNAPT TO. 

"With leaden appetite, unapt to toy." 

—Venus and Adonis, 34. 

"I am a soldier, and unapt to weep." 

—First Henry VI, v, 3. 

"Unapt to toil and trouble in the world." 

—The Comedy of Errors, iii, 2. 
UNTREAD AGAIN. 

"She treads the path that she untreads again.''* 

—Venus and Adonis, 908. 

"Where is the horse that doth un tread again.' 

—The Merchant of Venice, ii, t>. 
VARIABLE PASSIONS. 

"Variable passions throng her constant woe." 

—Venus and Adonis, 967. 

"I never heard a passion so confus'd, so strange, out- 
rageous, and so variable." 

—The Merchant of Venice, ii, 8. 

wax (reference to). 
"And yields at last to every light impression." 

—Venus and Adonis, 566. 

"Bears no impression of the thing it was." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii, 4. 
WAYWARD BOY. 

"How she came stealing to the wayward boy." 

—Venus and Adonis, 344. 

"This whimpled, whining, purblind wayward boy." 

—Love's Labor's Lost, iii, 1. 
WEAL OR WOE. 

"Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes." 

—Venus and Adonis, 987. 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 281 

"And will be partner of your weal or woe." 

—First Henry VI, iii, 2. 

" Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe." 

—Romeo and Juliet, iii, 2. 
WHOSE HOLLOW WOMB. 

" Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven's thunder." 

—Venus and Adonis, 268. 

" Whose hollow womb inherits naught but bones." 

—Richard II, ii, 1. 



WITHIN HIS DANGER. 

"Come not within his danger by thy will." 

—Venus and Adonis, 639. 

"You stand within his danger, do you not?" 

—Twelfth Night, v, 1. 



WITNESS THIS. 

" Witness this primrose bank, whereon I lie." 

—Venus and Adonis, 151. 

"Witness this army of such mass and charge." 

—Hamlet, iv, 4. 



WORSE AND WORSE. 

"Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse." 

—Venus and Adonis, 774. 

"Worse and worse, she will not come, 0, vile." 

—Taming of the Shrew, v, 2. 

"Worse and worse." 

—Othello, ii, 1. 

"I pray you, speak not, he grows worse and worse." 

—Macbeth, iii, 4. 
WRINGS HER BY THE NOSE. 

"He wrings her by the nose, he strikes her on the 
cheek." 

—Venus and Adonis, 481. 

"Rear up his body, wring him by the nose." 

—Second Henry VI, iii, 2. 



282 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The striking resemblances above set out are chiefly 
found in the plays which Meres, in his " Palladis Tamia" 
thus mentions: 

"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for 
comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare 
among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for 
the stage. 

"For comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his 
Errors, his Love's Labor's Lost, his Love's Labor's Won, 
his Midsummer Night's Dream, and his Merchant of Venice. 
For tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 
4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and 
Juliet." 

All these plays had, therefore, been written before 
1598, for this book of Meres was published in the summer 
of that year. We know from Henslowe's Diary that Titus 
Andronicus was acted on the stage as early as January 
28, 1594; and Love's Labor's Lost, called "Beronne" and 
"Burbon" by the ignorant Henslowe, from Biron, one of 
the principal characters, was put upon the stage on Novem- 
ber 2, 1597. 

I feel that every reader will coincide with me in the 
belief, virtually amounting to a certainty, that the poem 
of Venus and Adonis was written entirely by one person, 
and that that person was the author, in part at least, of 
the plays attributed to Shaksper, quotations from which 
are set out in this chapter. 

The following are peculiar and noteworthy words: 
"Aidance, clepes, cleped, clepeth, disjoined, enchanting, 
eyne, manage (as a noun), needs' t, petitioners, proceedings, 
quoth (used seventeen times), repine (as a noun), and 
whereat (used seven times)." 



VENUS AND ADONIS PHRASES REPEATED IN PLAYS. 283 

I am well aware that the collocation of phrases in this 
chapter will not interest the general reader, but it may 
be of some little value to the student of English literature 
who is seeking for the true Shakespeare. I am only striv- 
ing to give facts in aid of the search for the truth, coupled 
with my own opinion based upon those facts, and I leave 
the reader free to use the facts either for the purpose of 
forming his own opinion or of gathering more facts to 
enable him ultimately to reach a right conclusion. In 
trying to reach a conclusion he might be disturbed by the 
thought that perhaps the writers of that era may have 
borrowed from the Venus and Adonis phrases. Such may 
have been the case as to some of them, but the many 
striking resemblances in phrase and words between the 
Venus and Adonis and the plays lead the disinterested 
student to the conviction that such similarity was not the 
work of mere imitators. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 

"Such a one is a natural philosopher." 

As You Like It, iii, 2. 

The question as to the authorship of the Venus and 
Adonis is narrowed down in my opinion to three men, 
Francis Bacon, Thomas Dekker, and Michael Drayton. 
Were these men worthy of such authorship? 

Before further examination and decision on the merits, 
I will briefly consider and state the poetical history of 
each, in the order above stated. 

Francis Bacon was born on the 22d day of January, 
1561, and died on the 9th day of April, 1626. In a letter 
to Sir John Davies, he speaks of himself as a concealed 
poet. Spedding, his best biographer, says that Bacon had 
all the natural faculties which a poet wants — a fine ear 
for metre, a fine feeling for imaginative effect in words, 
and a vein of poetic passion. 

Taine, in his "History of English Literature," thus de- 
scribes him: "In this band of scholars, dreamers, and 
inquirers, appears the most comprehensive, sensible, origi- 
native of the minds of the age, Francis Bacon, a great and 
luminous intellect, one of the finest of this poetic progeny, 
who, like his predecessors, was naturally disposed to clothe 
his ideas in the most splendid dress ; in this age, a thought 
did not seem complete until it had assumed form and color. 
But what distinguishes him from all others is, that with 
him an image only serves to concentrate meditation. He 
reflected long, stamped on his mind all the parts and rela- 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 285 

tions of his subject; he is master of it, and then, instead 
of exposing this complete idea in a graduated chain of 
reasoning, he embodies it in a comparison so expressive, 
exact, lucid, that behind the figure we perceive all the 
details of the idea, like liquor in a fine crystal vase." 
Again he says, " He is a producer of conceptions and of 
sentences. The matter being explored, he says to us, 
' Such it is ; touch it not on that side ; it must be approached 
from the other.' Nothing more; no proof, no effort to 
convince; he affirms and does nothing more; he has 
thought in the manner of artists and poets, and he speaks 
after the manner of prophets and seers." 

On the 28th of February, 1587-8, a tragedy called 
"The Misfortunes of Arthur" and certain dumb-shows in 
which Bacon assisted were presented before the Queen at 
Greenwich. The dumb-shows and additional speeches 
were prepared by Bacon and others. 

In the year 1595, Bacon composed a device called "The 
Conference of Pleasure" for his friend Essex, which was 
presented before Queen Elizabeth on November 17, 1595, 
the anniversary of the accession of the Queen. This device 
is printed in the letters and memorials of state of the 
Sidney family, and consisted in part of a dumb-show. 
Four characters are introduced, an old Hermit, a Secretary 
of State, a brave Soldier, and an Esquire. The Esquire 
presents them each in turn to her Majesty. The Hermit 
recommends the gift of the Muses. I will give an extract 
from each to show Bacon's style. The Hermit, inter alia, 
says: 

"Whether he believe me or no, there is no prison to 
the thoughts, which are free under the greatest tyrants. 
Shall any man make his conceit as an anchorite, mured 



286 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

up with the compass of one beauty or person, that may 
have the liberty of all contemplation? Shall he exchange 
the sweet travelling through the universal variety for one 
wearisome and endless round or labyrinth? Let thy 
master offer his services to the Muses. It is long since they 
received any into their court. They give alms continually 
at their gate; but few they have ever admitted into their 
palace. There shall he find secrets not dangerous to know; 
sides and parties not factious to hold; precepts and com- 
mandments not penal to disobey. The gardens of love, 
wherein he now placeth himself, are fresh to-day and 
fading to-morrow, as the sun comports them or is turned 
from them. But the gardens of the Muses keep the privi- 
leges of the golden age: they ever flourish and are in 
league with time. The monuments of wit survive the 
monuments of power. The verses of a poet endure without 
a syllable lost, while States and Empires pass many 
periods. Let him not think that he shall descend; for he 
is now upon a hill as a ship is mounted upon the ridge of a 
wave, but that hill of the Muses is above tempests, always 
clear and calm; a hill of the goodliest discovery that man 
can have, being a prospect upon all the errors and wander- 
ings of the present and former times." 

The Soldier, in his turn, recommends the profession 
of arms. 

"Then for the dignity of the military profession," he 
says, "is it not the truest and perfectest practice of all 
virtues? of wisdom in disposing those things, which are 
most subject to confusion and accident; of justice in con- 
tinually distributing rewards; of temperance in exercising 
of the straitest discipline; of fortitude in toleration of all 
labors and abstinence from effeminate delights; of con- 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 287 

stancy, in bearing and digesting the greatest variety of 
fortune. So that when all other places and professions 
require but their several virtues, a brave leader in the wars 
must be accomplished in all. It is the wars that are the 
tribunal seat, where the highest rights and possessions are 
decided; the occupation of kings, the root of nobility, the 
protection of all estates." 

In advocacy of statesmanship, the Statesman, in part, 
says: 

" But what is thy master's end? If to make the prince 
happy he serves, let the instructions to employ men, the 
relations of ambassadors, the treaties between princes, 
and actions of the present time, be the books he reads; 
let the orations of wise princes or experimented counsellors 
in council or parliament, and the final sentences of grave 
and learned judges, in weighty and doubtful causes, be 
the lecturers he frequents. Let the holding of affection 
of confederates without charge, the frustrating of the 
attempts of enemies without battles, the entitling of the 
crown to new possessions without show of wrong, the 
filling of the prince's coffers without violence, the keeping 
of men in appetite without impatience, be the inventions 
he seeks out. Let policy and matters of state be the 
chief, and almost the only thing he intends." 

In summing up, the Esquire replies, in part, as follows : 

" Attend, you beadsman of the Muses, you take your 
pleasure in a wilderness of variety; but it is but of shadows. 
You are as a man rich in pictures, medals, and crystals. 
Your mind is of the water, which taketh all forms and 
impressions, but is weak of substance. Will you com- 
pare shadows with bodies, pictures with life, variety of 
many beauties with the peerless excellency of one, the 



288 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

element of water with the element of fire? And such is 
the comparison between knowledge and love. 

"Come out, man of war, you must be ever in noise. 
You will give laws, and advance force, and trouble nations, 
and remove landmarks of kingdoms, and hunt men, and 
pen tragedies in blood; and that which is worst of all, 
make all the virtues accessories to bloodshed. Hath the 
practice of force so deprived you of the use of reason, as 
that you will compare the interruption of society with the 
perfection of society? the conquest of bodies with the con- 
quest of spirits? the terrestrial fire, which destroyeth and 
dissolveth, with the celestial fire, which quickeneth and 
giveth life? 

"As for the Muses, they are tributary to her Majesty 
for the great liberties they have enjoyed in her kingdom 
during her most flourishing reign ; in thankfulness whereof, 
they have adorned and accomplished her Majesty with the 
gifts of all the sisters. What library can present such a 
story of great actions, as her Majesty carrieth in her royal 
breast by the often return of this happy day? What 
worthy author or favorite of the Muses is not familiar 
with her? Or what language wherein the Muses have 
used to speak is unknown to her?" 

In 1594 he took a chief part in the preparation of the 
Christmas revels at Gray's Inn for the purpose of enter- 
taining the Queen and her courtiers and assisting in 
recovering the lost honor of Gray's Inn, which had suffered 
from the miscarriage of a Christmas revel. It appears 
from a letter found among Lord Burghley's papers that 
Bacon wrote, in substance, that he was sorry that the joint 
masque from the Four Inns of Court had failed; but that 
a dozen gentlemen of Gray's Inn were ready to furnish a 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 289 

masque. An account of these revels, entitled "Gesta 
Grayorum" was printed in 1688. 

Again he produced another device for Essex to be 
presented before the Queen. This was called " The Masque 
of the Indian Prince, or the Darling Piece of Love and 
Self-love." In this piece two wanderers are introduced. 
One of them is a young Indian Prince, who was born blind, 
and the other wanderer is his conductor or guide. The 
third speaker is the Squire, who appears also in the Essex 
masque. 

There is nothing very different either in style or story 
in this last from the Essex masque, and the same Latin 
quotation is used in both, " Amare et sapere." 

The following extract will remind the reader of the lauda- 
tions of the Virgin Queen in the Midsummer Night's Dream : 
"And at last, this present year, out of one of the holiest 
vaults, was delivered to him an oracle in these words: 

" Seated between the old world and the new, 
A land there is no other land may touch, 
Where reigns a Queen in peace and honor true ; 
Stories or fables do describe no such, 
Never did Atlas such a burden bear, 
As she in holding up the world oppress' t, 
Supplying with her virtue everywhere 
Weakness of friends, errors of servants best. 
No nation breeds a warmer blood for war, 
And yet she calms them by her majesty; 
No age hath ever wits refined so far, 
And yet she calms them by her policy; 
To her thy son must make his sacrifice. 
If he will have the morning of his eyes. 

"This oracle hath been our direction hitherto and the 
cause of our wearisome pilgrimage. We do humbly 



290 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

beseech your Majesty that we make experience whether 
we be at the end of our journey or not." 

Bacon assisted in furnishing a Masque which was 
designed to celebrate the marriage of the Princess Eliza- 
beth to the Count Palatine; and Chamberlain, writing on 
the 18th of February, 1612-3, in noticing the masque, 
speaks of Bacon as its chief contriver. 

Of his translation of certain of the Psalms into English 
verse, I will give a few extracts to show his style. The 
first is from the ninetieth Psalm: 

" 0, thou who art our hope, to whom we fly, 
And so hast always been from age to age, 
Before the hills did intercept the sky, 
Or that the frame was up of earthly stage. 
One God thou wert and art and still shall be : 
The line of life, it doth not measure thee. 

Both death and life obey thy holy love, 
And visit in their turns, as they are sent. 
A thousand years with thee, they are no more 
Than yesterday, which ere it is, is spent, 

Or as a watch by night, that course doth keep, 
And goes and comes un wares to them that sleep. 

Thou carry'st man away as with a tide ; 

Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high; 

Much like a mocking dream that will not bide, 

But flies before the sight of waking eye, 
Or as the grass that cannot term obtain 
To see the summer come about again. 

Teach us, Lord, to number well our days, 

Thereby our hearts to wisdom to apply; 

For that which guides man best in all his ways 

Is meditation of mortality. 

This bubble life, this vapor of our breath, 
Teach us to consecrate to hour of death." 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 291 

The second is a short extract from the translation of 
the 104th Psalm: 

"The clouds as chariots swift do scour the sky; 
The stormy winds upon their wings do fly ; 
His angels spirits are that wait his will 
As flames of fire, his anger they fulfill. 
The higher grounds where waters cannot rise, 
By rain and dews are watered from the skies, 
Causing the earth put forth the grass for beasts 
And garden herbs served at the greatest feasts. 
And bread that is all viands firmament 
And gives a firm and solid nourishment, 
And wine, man's spirit for to recreate, 
And oil, his face for to exhilarate." 

In the latter part of his life, Bacon wrote a short poem, 
which I insert in its entirety: 

" The world's a bubble, and the life of man 

Less than a span; 
In his conception wretched, from the womb 

So to the tomb ; 
Cursed from his cradle and brought up to years 

With cares and fears : 
Who, then, to frail mortality shall trust, 
But limns the water, or but writes in dust. 

Yet, whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, 

What life is best? 
Courts are but only superficial schools, 

To dandle fools; 
The rural parts are turned into a den 

Of savage men; 
And where's the city from foul vice so free 
But may be termed the worst of all the three? 



292 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, 

Or pains his head. 
Those that live single take it for a curse, 

Or do things worse. 
Some would have children ; those that have them moan 

Or wish them gone. 
What is it, then, to have or have no wife, 
But single thraldom or a double strife? 

Our own affections still at home to please 

Is a disease : 
To cross the seas to any foreign soil, 

Perils and toil. 
Wars with the r noise affright us; when they cease, 

We're worse in peace. 
What then remains, but that we still should cry 
Not to be born, or, being born, to die?" 

I cite a few more short examples of his style in prose. 
In the description of Solomon's House in the fragmentary 
New Atlantis, written nearly three centuries ago, Bacon, 
prophet-like, describes improvements and conveniences, 
such as we now have. Thus, for instance, he causes the 
father of Solomon's House to say: 

"We have also engine houses, where are prepared 
engines and instruments of all sorts of motions. There we 
imitate and practice to make swifter motions than any 
you have, either out of your muskets, or any engine that 
you have; and to make them, and multiply them more 
easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means: 
and to make them stronger, and more violent than yours 
are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We 
represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and 
engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and com- 
positions of gunpowder, wild-fires burning in water and 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 293 

unquenchable. Also fire-works of all variety both for 
pleasure and for use. We imitate also flights of birds; 
we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships 
and boats for going under the water, and brooking of 
seas; also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have 
divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return, 
and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions 
of living creatures, by images of men, beasts, birds, fishes 
and serpents; we have also a great number of other 
various motions, strange for equality, fineness and sub- 
tilty." 

Then follows Bacon's tribute to inventors. He seemed 
to have realized the fact, so well known to the mass of the 
people, especially in the United States, that the inventor, 
as a general rule, is not the pecuniary gainer by his inven- 
tion, no matter how useful the device may be, and there- 
fore in the following lines he proposes statues and liberal 
rewards for inventors: 

"For our ordinances and rites: we have two very long 
and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and 
samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent 
inventions : in the other we place the statues of all principal 
inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, 
that discovered the West Indies: also the inventor of 
ships: your monk that was the inventor of ordnance, and 
of gunpowder: the inventor of music: the inventor of 
letters: the inventor of printing: the inventor of obser- 
vations of astronomy : the inventor of works in metal : the 
inventor of glass: the inventor of silk of the worm: the 
inventor of wine: the inventor of corn and bread: the 
inventor of sugars : and all these by more certain tradition 
than you have. Then have we divers inventors of our own 



294 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

of excellent works; which since you have not seen, it were 
too long to make descriptions of them ; and besides, in the 
right understanding of those descriptions, you might easily 
err. For upon every invention of value we erect a statue 
to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable re- 
ward. These statues are, some of brass : some of marble and 
touch-stone; some of cedar, and other special woods gilt 
and adorned: some of iron; some of silver; some of gold." 

But there is one statement of Bacon in his address on 
the Unity of the Church, which ought to be read and 
studied by every reader very carefully. Bacon plants 
himself in his enumeration of the considerations for the 
edification and pacification of the Church upon the author- 
ity of St. Paul, who, in his epistle to the Ephesians, declared 
himself to be "an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of 
God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful 
in Christ Jesus." 

This Apostle declared that unity was to be kept by 
having one Lord, one faith and one baptism, and Bacon's 
strong and really unanswerable proposition on church 
unity is that the particular form of Church Government, 
by reason of its omission from the Apostle's definition, is 
therefore neither essential nor possible. Thus, he says, 
" there should be but one form of discipline in all churches, 
and that imposed by necessity of a commandment and 
prescript out of the word of God; it is a matter volumes 
have been compiled of, and therefore can not receive a 
brief redarguation. I for my part do confess, that in 
revolving the Scriptures I could never find any such thing : 
but that God had left the like liberty to the church gov- 
ernment, as hejiad done to the civil government; to be 
varied according to time, and place, and accidents, which 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 295 

nevertheless his high and divine providence doth order 
and dispose. For all civil governments are restrained 
from God under the general grounds of justice and manners; 
but the policies and forms of them are left free; so that 
monarchies and kingdoms, senates and seignories, popular 
states and commonalties, are lawful, and where they are 
planted ought to be maintained inviolate. 

"So likewise in church matters, the substance of doc- 
trine is immutable, and so are the general rules of govern- 
ment: but for rites and ceremonies, and for the particular 
hierarchies, policies, and disciples of churches, they be left 
at large. And therefore it is good we return unto the 
ancient bounds of unity in the church of God; which was, 
one faith, one baptism; and not, one hierarchy, one dis- 
cipline ; and that we observe the league of Christians, as it 
is penned by our Saviour ; which is in substance of doctrine 
this: He that is not with us, is against us; but in things 
indifferent, and but of circumstance, this: He that is not 
against us, is with us. In these things, so as the general 
rules be observed: that Christ's flock be fed; that there 
be a succession in bishops and ministers, which are the 
prophets of the New Testament; that there be a due and 
reverent use of the power of the keys; that those that 
preach the gospel, live of the gospel; that all things tend 
to edification; that all things be done in order and with 
decency, and the like: the rest is left to the holy wisdom 
and spiritual discretion of the master builders and inferior 
builders in Christ's church; as it is excellently alluded by 
that father that noted, that Christ's garment was without 
seam ; and yet the church's garment was of divers colours : 
and thereupon setteth down for a rule, in veste varietas 
sit, scissura non sit." 



296 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

There are three very good descriptions of Bacon's 
powers and ability, which are taken from contemporary 
writers. 

Ben Jonson thus eulogizes him: 

"Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker, 
who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, 
where he could spare, or pass by a jest, was nobly censo- 
rious. No man ever spoke more neatly, more precisely, 
more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, 
in what he uttered. No member of his speech but con- 
sisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough or 
look aside from him without loss. He commanded when 
he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his 
discretion. No man had their affections more in his power. 
The fear of every man who heard him was, lest he should 
make an end. 

"Cicero is said to be the only wit that the people of 
Rome had equalled to their empire. Ingenium par imperio. 
We have had many, and in their several ages (to take in 
but the former seculwn) Sir Thomas More, the elder Wiat, 
Henry earl of Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B. Gardiner, 
were for their times admirable; and the more because 
they began eloquence with us. Sir Nic. Bacon was singu- 
lar, and almost alone, in the beginning of Queen Eliza- 
beth's time. Sir Philip Sidney and Mr. Hooker (in differ- 
ent matter) grew great masters of wit and language, and 
in whom all vigour of invention and strength of judgment 
met. The earl of Essex, noble and high, and Sir Walter 
Raleigh, not to be contemned, either for judgment or 
style. Sir Henry Saville, grave and truly lettered; Sir 
Edwin Sandys, excellent in both; Lord Egerton, a grave 
and great orator, and best when he was provoked. But 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 297 

his learned and able (but unfortunate) successor is he, that 
hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, 
which may be compared and preferred either to insolent 
Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and 
about his times, were all the wits born, that could honor a 
language, or help study. Now things daily fall: wits 
grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that 
he may be named, and stand as the mark and acme of our 
language." 

Sir Tobie Matthew calls him a literary monster. In 
his Address to the Reader, appended to his collection of 
letters, he says: 

" We have also rare compositions of minds amongst us, 
which look so many fair ways at once that I doubt it will 
go near to pose any other nation of Europe to muster out 
in any age four men who, in so many respects, should 
excel four such as we are able to show — Cardinal Wolsey, 
Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and Sir Francis 
Bacon; for they were all a kind of monsters in their 
several ways. 

"The fourth was a creature of incomparable abilities 
of mind, of a sharp and catching apprehension, large and 
faithful memory, plentiful and sprouting invention, deep 
and solid judgment for as much as might concern the 
understanding part: — a man so rare in knowledge, of so 
many several kinds, indued with the facility and felicity 
of expressing it all, in so elegant, significant, so abundant 
and yet so choice and ravishing a way of words, of meta- 
phors, and allusions, as perhaps the world has not seen 
since it was a world. 

"I know this may seem a great hyperbole and strange 
kind of riotous excess of speech; but the best means of 



298 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

putting me to shame will be for you to place any man of 
yours by this of mine. And, in the meantime, even this 
little makes a shift to show that the Genius of England 
is still not only eminent, but predominant, for the assem- 
bling great variety of those rare parts, in some single man, 
which used to be incompatible anywhere else." 

Osborne, a contemporary, has this to say of his ability: 
" And my memory neither doth (nor I believe possibly 
ever can) direct me to an example more splendid in this 
kind than the Lord Bacon, Earl of St. Albans, who in all 
companies did appear a good proficient, if not a master, 
in those arts entertained for the subject of every one's 
discourse. So as I dare maintain, without the least affec- 
tation of flattery or hyperbole, that his most casual talk 
deserveth to be written, as I have been told his first or 
foulest copies required no great labour to render them 
competent for the nicest judgments : high perfection attain- 
able only by use and treating with every man in his 
respective profession, and which he was most versed in. 
"So as I have heard him entertain a country lord in 
the proper terms relating to hawks and dogs, and at another 
time outcant a London chirurgeon. Thus he did not only 
learn himself, but gratify such as taught him, who looked 
upon their calling as honoured by his notice. Nor did an 
easy falling into arguments (not unjustly taken for a 
blemish in the most) appear less than an ornament in him ; 
the ears of his hearers receiving more gratification than 
trouble ; and no less sorry when he came to conclude, than 
displeased with any that did interrupt him. Now, the 
general knowledge he had in all things, husbanded by his 
wit and dignified with so majestical a carriage he was 
known to own, struck such an awful reverence in those he 



FRANCIS BACON CONSIDERED. 299 

questioned, that they durst not conceal the most intrinsic 
part of their mysteries from him, for fear of appearing 
ignorant or saucy. All which rendered him no less neces- 
sary than admirable at the council-table, when in refer- 
ence to impositions, monopolies, etc., the meanest manu- 
facturers were an usual argument; and, as I have heard, 
he did in this baffle the Earl of Middlesex, who was born 
and bred a citizen, etc. Yet, without any great (if at all) 
interrupting his abler studies, as is not hard to be imagined 
of a quick apprehension, in which he was admirable." 

In considering Francis Bacon, the reader and I are not 
concerned about his character or conduct or the incidents 
of his life, except as they bear upon the present investiga- 
tion. It is not necessary for us to draw his frailties from 
their dread abode. Whether he was false to Essex or 
subservient to Buckingham, or guilty of accepting bribes 
without any palliating circumstances, concerns us not in 
this investigation. Was he a poet and a good one and 
was he, as he himself declares, a concealed poet? Was he 
an adept in philosophy? Was he a ready writer? Did 
he have all knowledge for his province? Had he the time, 
the inclination and the ability to compose or revise, 
amplify and embellish such plays as Hamlet, Othello, and 
Measure for Measure? One thing we do know about him 
that bears directly upon the subject-matter of our inquiry, 
and that is that he declared and implicitly believed that 
"the gardens of the Muses keep the privileges of the 
golden age; they ever flourish and are in league with time. 
The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power. 
The verses of a poet endure without a syllable lost, while 
States and Empires pass many periods." 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 

"Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy." 

—Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii, 2. 

Very little is known of Thomas Dekker by the reading 
public, and yet he was one of the best poets of the Eliza- 
bethan period. If what I have written or shall write about 
him will be the means of inducing students of English 
literature to closely investigate the facts as to his life, 
especially in connection with the contemporary poets and 
dramatists, much of the fog which has hitherto enveloped 
the question of Shakespearean authorship would be dis- 
pelled. No careful search has ever been made to obtain 
the facts as to Dekker's birth, parentage, family history 
and surroundings, or the time and place of his death. 

His birthplace doubtless was London, because, in a 
book written by him, called "The Seven Deadly Sins of 
London," and printed in 1606, speaking of the city of 
London, he says, "0, thou beautifullest daughter of the 
two united Monarchies! from thy womb received I my 
being; from thy breast, my nourishment." 

The term of his life probably extended over seventy 
years, because in the dedication of another book of his, 
entitled "English Villainies, seven several times pressed 
to death," and dated in February, 1637, he says, "I preach 
without a pulpit : This is no sermon, but an epistle dedica- 
tory which dedicates these discoveries, and my three- 
score years devotedly yours in my best service." 

In another book called "Wars, wars, wars," issued in 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 301 

1628, he writes, " For my heart danceth sprightly when I 
see (old as I am) our English gallantry." 

There is another allusion to his age in the dedication 
affixed to his tragi-comedy called "Match Me in London," 
printed in 1631. Therein he says, "I have been a priest 
in Apollo's temple many years ; my voice is decaying with 
my age, yet yours being clear and above mine shall much 
honor me if you but listen to my old tunes." 

He is first directly mentioned in Henslowe's Diary on 
page 117, under the name of "Dickers," on the eighth 
day of January, 1597, as appears by the following entry: 
"Lent unto thomas Douton, the 8 of Janewary 1597 twenty 
shillinges to by a booke of Mr Dickers Lent XX s." 
What the name of the play was is not specified. On the 
next page are the following entries : " Lent unto the Com- 
pany the 15 of Janewary 1597 to bye a book of Mr Dickers 
called Fayeton fower pounde. I say lent." The next 
entry on the same page shows that poor Dekker was in 
trouble, having been imprisoned in jail for debt. Hen- 
slowe, on page 118, records the following: "Lent unto the 
Company the 4 of febreary 1598 to disecharge Mr Dicker 
out of the counter of the poultrey the some of fortie 
shillinges. 

"I sayed, d to Thomas Douton xxxx s." 

As a matter of fact, before 1597 he had written for the 
theatres, and his productions were received with much 
favor. 

The pleasant comedy of old Fortunatus must have been 
written by Dekker prior to or in the early part of the year 
1595, for Henslowe, in his Diary, at page 64, makes the 
following entry : " 16 of Febreary 1595 Rd at Fortunatus 
xxxx s." It was a popular and paying play. The entries 



302 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

in the Diary show that it was frequently acted and at good 
prices. In 1600 it was printed, the title page says, "As 
it was played before the Queen's Majesty this Christmas 
by the Right Honorable the Earl of Nottingham, Lord 
High Admiral of England, his servants." 

The Queen must have been greatly pleased with the 
flattering language of Dekker's prologue. It is headed, 
"The prologue at Court; enter two old men," and it 
begins thus: 

" 1. Are you then traveling to the temple of Eliza? 

"2. Even to her temple are my feeble limbs traveling: 
Some call her Pandora; some, Gloriana; some, Delphoebe; 
some, Astrea; all by several names to express several 
loves. Yet all these names make but one celestial body, 
as all those loves meet to create but one soul. 

" 1. I am one of her own Country and we adore her by 
the name of Eliza. 

"2. Blessed name, happy country; your Eliza makes 
your land Elysium." 

Henslowe shows, at page 161, that he paid to Dekker 
on December 12, 1599, the sum of forty shillings for making 
the "ending" or addition to Fortunatus for the Court. 
This reference is to the epilogue at Court at the end of the 
play, which is a direct and beautiful compliment to the 
Queen. 

Including Fortunatus, I will enumerate fifty-two plays 
composed wholly or in part by Dekker. On January 8, 
1597, he sold a play to Henslowe called Phaeton; on 
December 20th of the same year, he wrote additions to 
Marlowe's play of Faustus, and a prologue to Tamerlane. 
This is evidenced by Henslowe's entry at page 71 of the 
Diary. On March 1, 1598, he wrote the Triplicity of 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 303 

Cuckolds. On March 13, 1598, he collaborated with 
Drayton and Chettle in the composition of the Famous 
Wars of Henry First, and the Prince of Wales. On March 
25, 1598, with Drayton, Chettle, and Wilson, he wrote 
Earl Goodwin and his Three Sons ; on March 30, 1598, in 
collaboration with Drayton, Wilson, and Chettle, he wrote 
Pierce of Exton, as Henslowe calls it. Collier notes, at 
page 121 of the Diary, that "Sir Piers of Exton killed 
Richard the Second, and this play was most likely con- 
nected with that historical incident." 

If Shaksper did not have the ability to write the play 
of Richard II, why may it not be the joint work of 
Michael Drayton, Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and 
Robert Wilson, who were thoroughly competent to com- 
pose it? 

On May 22, 1598, with Wilson and Drayton, he wrote 
the Black Batman of the North. On June 10, 1598, with 
Wilson, Drayton, and Chettle, he wrote the second part of 
Earl Goodwin, and on June 30th of the same year he wrote 
Madman's Morris in conjunction with Wilson and Drayton. 
On July 17, 1598, he wrote Hannibal and Hermes; and on 
July 18th, Pierce of Winchester, each with the same 
collaborators. On August 19, 1598, he wrote Chance 
Medley with Wilson, Monday, and Chettle. On August 
30, 1598, he and Drayton wrote Worse Afraid than Hurt, 
and on September 29, 1598, they wrote together the First 
Civil Wars in France. On November 3, 1598, they wrote 
the second part of the same play; and on the 18th of the 
same month, they composed the third part thereof. On 
February 15, 1599, he wrote, with John Day and William 
Haughton, the Spanish Moor's Tragedy; and on March 1, 
1599, he furnished the Seven Wise Masters, in collabora- 



304 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

tion with Chettle, John Day, and William Haughton. 
On April 7, 1599, Chettle and he began the play of Troilus 
and Cressida, receiving pay for it on the 17th of the same 
month; and on May 2, 1599, he wrote Orestes Furies. 
Again collaborating with Chettle, on May 26, 1599, he 
wrote the tragedy of Agamemnon. On July 15, 1599, he 
composed the fine play of the Shoemakers' Holiday, or 
the Gentle Craft, which was acted before the Queen on 
the succeeding New Year's Day by the Earl of Nottingham's 
servants. The edition of 1600 contains the prologue as 
it was pronounced before the Queen. On August 1, 1599, 
he wrote the play of Bear a Brain. With Ben Jonson as 
collaborator, on August 10, 1599, he wrote Page of Ply- 
mouth; and on August 23, 1599, with Henry Chettle, The 
Stepmother's Tragedy. Henslowe notes, at page 156 of 
the Diary, that he paid Dekker, Benjamin Jonson, Henry 
Chettle "and the other gentlemen" forty shillings for a 
play called Robert the Second, King of Scots tragedy. 
The play of Sir John Oldcastle, published as if by William 
Shakespeare, was the work of Monday, Drayton, Wi'son, 
Hathaway, with additions by Thomas Dekker, for which 
additions Dekker received fifty shillings. The much- 
esteemed play of Patient Grissel was produced by him on 
October 16, 1599, in collaboration with Henry Chettle and 
William Haughton. On April 27, 1600, with John Day 
and Henry Chettle, he wrote the Golden Ass and Cupid 
and Psyche; and on June 14, 1600, he composed Fair 
Constance of Rome, in conjunction with Michael Drayton, 
Richard Hathaway, and Anthony Monday. On October 
15, 1600, he wrote Lady Jane, in collaboration with Thomas 
Heywood, Wentworth Smyth, John Webster, and Henry 
Chettle. On January 16, 1601, he wrote the prologue 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 305 

and epilogue for Pontius Pilate; and on the same day he 
was paid by Henslowe "for the altering of Tasso." On 
April 18, 1601, with Henry Chettle, he wrote King Sebas- 
tian of Portugal. On May 14, 1602, with Anthony Mon- 
day, he wrote Jeptha for Henslowe's Company, or, as the 
Diary spells it, " Jeffta." On May 29, 1602, he wrote the 
Two Harpies jointly with Michael Drayton, Thomas 
Middleton, John Webster, and Anthony Monday. On 
July 19, 1602, he wrote a play called Medicine for a Curst 
Wife; and about the same time he revised the play of 
Tasso, or "mended it" as Henslowe expresses it. On 
October 15, 1602, he wrote the second part of Lady Jane. 
On November 3, 1602, with the aid of Thomas Middleton, 
he wrote the Honest Whore, and on November 23, 1602, 
with Henry Chettle, he wrote the play of Christmas Comes 
but Once a Year. In 1602, to satirize Ben Jonson and 
punish him for the attack made upon him in the Poetaster, 
he wrote the famous play of Satiro-mastix, or the untruss- 
ing of the humorous poet. In 1622, with Philip Mas- 
singer, he wrote the Virgin Martyr. In 1631, he wrote 
the two plays called Match Me in London and The Wonder 
of a Kingdom. He also wrote with John Ford, the Sun's 
Darling and the Witch of Edmonton. He must also be 
credited with the second part of the Honest Whore, a 
share in Westward Hoe, The Whore of Babylon, North- 
ward Hoe, The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt, 
and the Roaring Girl. 

The patient tracing of Dekker's playwriting life, as 
delineated in Henslowe's Diary and Pearson's Collection, 
shows conclusively that the proprietor of a theatre, for the 
consideration of a few paltry pounds, shillings, and pence, 
commanded the poetic and dramatic talent of the very 



306 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

best poets of the time ; that most of the plays were written 
in collaboration; and that when they received their pay, 
the writers lost all claim to their productions, which there- 
after became the exclusive property of the owner of the 
theatre, no matter how ignorant or illiterate he might be. 
Dekker, as the Diary shows, while loose and prodigal, was 
an industrious, plodding, and ready writer. His plays 
were favorites at the Court and were produced before 
Queen Elizabeth. 

As in the case of Bacon, I give a few specimens of his 
style. The first is from Satiro-mastix and is in praise of 
hair and a blow at bald pates, put into the mouth of Ben 
Jonson, alias Horace: 

IN PRAISE OF HAIR. 

" If of all the body's parts, the head 
Be the most royal: if discourse, wit, judgment, 
And all our understanding faculties, 
Sit there in their high Court of Parliament, 
Enacting laws to sway this humorous world; 
This little isle of man; needs must that crown, 
Which stands upon the supreme head, be fair 
And held invaluable; and that crown's the hair. 
The head that wants this honor stands awry, 
Is bare in name and in authority. 
Hair, 'tis the robe which curious nature weaves 
To hang upon the head, and does adorn 
Our bodies in the first hour we are born. 
God does bestow that garment : when we die, 
That, like a soft and silken canopy, 
Is still spread over us. In spite of death, 
Our hair grows in our grave, and that alone 
Looks fresh, when all our beauty's gone. 
The excellence of hair in this shines clear 
That the four elements take pride to wear 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 307 

The fashion of it. When fire most bright does burn, 
The flames to golden locks do strive to turn; 
When her lascivious arms, the water hurls 
About the shore's waist, her sleek head she curls, 
And rorid clouds, being sucked into the air, 
When down they melt, hang like fine silver hair. 
You see the Earth, whose head so oft is shorn, 
Frighted to feel her locks so rudely torn, 
Stands with her hair on end, and thus afraid, 
Turns every hair to a green naked blade. 
Besides, when struck with grief, we long to die, 
We spoil that most, which most does beautify, 
We rend this head-tire off. I thus conclude 
Colors set colors out. Our eyes judge right 
Of vice or virtue by their opposites. 
So, if fair hair to beauty add such grace, 
Baldness must needs be ugly, vile and base." 

Then comes the rejoinder of Dekker, alias Crispinus, 
giving baldness a higher place than hair. 

IN PRAISE OF BALDNESS. 

"The goodliest and most glorious strange-built wonder, 
Which that great Architect hath made is heaven; 
For there he keeps his Court. It is his kingdom. 
That's his best masterpiece— yes, 'tis the roof 
And ceiling of the world, that may be called 
The head or crown of earth, — and yet that's bald. 
All creatures in it bald. The lovely sun 
Has a face sleek as gold; the full-cheeked moon 
As bright and smooth as silver; nothing there 
Wears dangling locks ; but sometime blazing stars, 
Whose naming curls set realms on fire with wars, 
Descend more low ; look through man's fivefold sense, 
Of all, the eye bears greatest eminence ; 
And yet that's bald — The hairs, that like a lace, 
Are stitched to the lids, borrow those forms 



308 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Like pent houses to save the eyes from storms. 
A head and face o'er grown with shaggy dross, 
0! 'tis an orient pearl hid all in moss; 
But when the head's all naked and uncrowned, 
It is the world's globe, even, smooth and round. 
Baldness is nature's butt, at which our life 
Shoots her last arrow. What man ever led 
His age out with a staff, but had a head 
Bare and uncovered? he, whose years do rise 
To their full height, yet not bald, is not wise. 
The head is wisdom's house, hair but the thatch. 
Hair! it's the basest stubble; in scorn of it, 
This proverb sprung, 'he has more hair than wit.'" 

The next quotation forms a part of the dialogue between 
Celestine and her father in the same play: 
Celestine says: 

"Must I betray my chastity, so long 

Clear from the treason of rebelling lust ; • 

husband ! my father ! if poor I 

Must not live chaste, then let me chastely die. 

Father- 
Ay, here's a charm shall keep thee chaste, 

Come Come. 
Old time hath left us but an hour to play 
Our parts; begin the scene; who shall speak first? 
Oh I. I play the king, and kings speak first. 
We need no prologue, the king entering first. 
He's a most gracious prologue. Marry, then, 
For the catastrophe or epilogue. 
There's one in cloth of silver, which no doubt, 
Will please the hearers well, when he steps out. 
His mouth is filled with words. See where he stands. 
He'll make them clap their eyes besides their hands. 
But to my part. Suppose who enters now 

u A King, whose eyes are set in silver ; one 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 309 

That blusheth gold, speaks music, dancing walks; 
Now gathers nearer, takes thee by the hand, 
When straight thou think'st, the very orb of heaven 
Moves round about thy fingers. Then he speaks, 
Thus — thus — I know not how. 

Celestine — ■ 
Nor I to answer him. 

Father — 
No, girl! know'st thou not how to answer him, 
Why, then, the field is lost, and he rides home, 
Like a great conqueror. Not answer him? 
Out of thy part already? foiled the scene? 
Disranked the lines? disarmed the action?" 

The father then proposes poison to her, and the husband 
addresses the father thus: 

"Oh, 

That very name of poison poisons me ; 

Thou winter of a man, thou walking grave, 

Whose life is like a dying taper, 

How canst thou define a lover's laboring thoughts? 

What scent hast thou but death? What taste but 

earth? 
The breath that purls from thee is like the steam 
Of a new-opened vault. I know thy drift. 
Because thou art traveling to the land of graves, 
Thou courtest company and hither bring'st 
A health of poison to pledge death — a poison 
For this sweet spring; this element is mine. 
This is the air I breathe. Corrupt it not; 
This heaven is mine, I bought it with my soul 
Of him that sells a heaven, to buy a soul." 

As to learned opinions of Dekker, no one who has 
familiarized himself with Dekker's poetry will dispute the 
opinion of Charles Lamb that " Dekker had poetry enough 
for anything." 



310 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

But the chief reason for making him one of the trium- 
virate of poets best equipped for the position of author of 
the Shakespeare poems, is based upon the direct state- 
ments contained in the dramatic production which I will 
bring to the attention and careful scrutiny of the reader, 
and also because I believe that I can give cogent reasons 
for the opinion that Dekker was either the originator or 
reviser of some of the Shakespeare plays. 

A play was publicly acted by the students of St. Joh 's 
College, Cambridge, in the year 1601-2, called "The 
Return from Parnassus." The author of it is unknown. 
It was printed in 1606. The play is in part devoted to a 
comparison of the respective merits of the poets and 
dramatists of that era. 

In order that the reader may understand who were 
named and whose merits were discussed, I give here a 
verbatim copy of so much of the play as mainly relates 
to the consideration of the merits of the poets named, 
together with the observations of the principal commen- 
tators who have without question accepted Shaksper as 
the author of the poems and plays. The reader will find 
the play in the first volume of the " Ancient British Drama," 
at page 46. It is entitled "The Return from Parnassus, 
or the Scourge of Simony," publicly acted by the students 
of Saint John's College, in Cambridge. 

In Act 1, Scene 2, Judicio, one of the chief characters, 
speaks of a book called " Belvedere, or the Garden of the 
Muses," and he says to Ingenioso, another character : 
"Turn over the leaf and thou shalt see the pains of this 
worthy gentleman — sentences gathered out of all kinds of 
poets, referred to certain methodical heads. Read the 
names." 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED 311 

" Ing. — So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them 
Edmund Spenser Michael Drayton 

Henry Constable John Davis 

Thomas Lodge John Marston 

Samuel Daniel Kit Marlowe 

Thomas Watson 

Good men and true stand together; hear your censure. 
What's thy judgment of Spenser? 
Jud. — A sweeter swan than ever sang in poe, 

A shriller nightingale than ever blest 

The prouder groves of self -admiring Rome; 

Blithe was each valley and each shepherd proud 

While he did chant his rural minstrelsy. 
Ing. — Pity it is that gentle wits should breed, 

Where thick-skin choughs laugh at a scholar's need. 

But softly may our honors ashes rest, 

That lie by merry Chaucer's noble dust. 

But I pray thee, proceed briefly in the censures, that 
I may be proud of myself, as in the first ; so in the last my 
censure may jump with thine. Henry Constable, Samuel 
Daniel, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson. 
Jud. — Sweet Constable doth take the wondering ear 

And lays it up in willing prisonment. 

Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage 

War with the proudest big Italian, 

That melts his heart in sugared sonneting. 

Only let him more sparingly make use 

Of others' wit and use his own the more; 

That well may scorn base imitation. 

For Lodge and Watson, men of some desert 

Yet subject to a critic's marginal. 

Lodge for his oar in every paper boat; 

He that turns over Galen every day 

To sit and simper Euphues' legacy. 
Ing. — Michael Drayton. 

Drayton's sweet muse is like a sanguine dye 

Able to ravish the vast gazer's eye. 



312 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

However he wants one true note of a poet of our 
times, and that is this, he can not swagger it well in a 
tavern nor domineer in a hothouse." 

Then after describing and criticising John Davis, Lodge, 
Hudson, and John Marston, Christopher Marlowe and 
Benjamin Jonson, Ingenioso calls out: "William Shake- 
speare," and Judicio says: 

" Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape, 
His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life, 
Could but a graver subject him content, 
Without love's foolish lazy languishment." 

Here is recognition of a man styled William Shakespeare 
as the author of the two poems. 

Farther on in Act 4, Scene 3, there is a dialogue between 
two noted actors, Burbage and Will Kempe, two other 
characters of the play, and Kempe says, " I was once at a 
comedy in Cambridge and there I saw a parasite make 
faces and mouths of all sorts on this fashion." Burbage 
replies, "A little teaching will mend these faults and it 
may be besides they will be able to pen a part.'-' And 
Kempe answers, "Few of the Universit}' pen plays well; 
they smell too much of that writer Ovid and that writer 
Metamorphosis, and talk too much of Proserpine and 
Jupiter. Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them 
all down, aye and Ben Jonson too. 0, that Ben Jonson 
is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the 
poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a 
purge, that made him bewray his credit. 

" Burb. — It's a shrewd fellow indeed." 

Malone, who did much to lead astray all succeeding 
commentators as to the authorship of the plays, says: 
"In what manner Shakespeare put Jonson down does not 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 313 

appear, nor does it appear how he made him bewray his 
credit. His retaliation, we may well be assured, contained 
no gross or illiberal attack and perhaps did not go beyond 
a ballad or an epigram." 

Malone admits in the foregoing that nowhere in all of 
the Shakespeare writings does it appear that the Shake- 
speare of the poems and plays made Jonson bewray his 
credit; and then he guesses that he, Shaksper, may have 
written a ballad or epigram against Jonson. He also 
guesses that if he did write one, that it contained nothing 
"gross or illiberal." The disinterested reader, I am sure, 
will not care very much for Malone 's guesses. He will 
fairly draw this inference from his statements, that with 
all his research, he, Malone, could find nothing in the 
so-called Shakespeare plays and poems which reflected 
upon or alluded to Jonson ; and no one, not even the most 
rabid believer in Shaksper, pretends that any trace of any 
writings whatever of William Shaksper (except his signa- 
tures to certain legal papers) has been found either by 
Malone or any one else. 

In Gifford's Memoir of Ben Jonson, attached to his 
plays, the Kempe and Burbage dialogue is introduced 
together with the remarks of Malone above quoted, " That 
perhaps the retaliation did not go beyond a ballad or an 
epigram." And then Gifford, who did not like Malone's 
fling at Jonson, adds the following: " But with Mr. Malone's 
leave, if it went as far as either, Shakespeare was greatly 
to be blamed, for Jonson had given him no offense what- 
ever. I will take upon myself to affirm that the Poetaster, 
a play of Jonson's which contains an attack upon two 
contemporary dramatists, and particularly upon one of 
them who is dubbed 'The Poetaster,' does not contain a 



314 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

single passage that can be tortured by the utmost inge- 
nuity of malice into a reflection on our great poet. It will 
scarcely be credited that the sentence last quoted (i. e. 
from Malone) should be immediately followed by these 
words: Shakespeare has, however, marked his disregard 
for the calumniator of his fame, by not leaving him any 
memorial by his will." 

I find, and the most energetic searcher of Shakespearean 
essays, comments, and criticisms will find, that Malone 
was the leader of the host of Shakespearean critics and 
commentators and that generally his opinions and guesses, 
however wild and unreliable, have found favor with the 
believers in the William Shaksper of Stratford. He, 
Malone, was the brilliant and fierce exposer of Ireland's 
forgeries; and he was also the builder and strong supporter 
of the baseless fabric on which the Shaksper claim of 
authorship rests. Hence, when Malone resorts to guesses 
and surmises as to the attack by Jonson and the retaliation 
by Shakespeare, all the critics and commentators blindly 
follow his lead, and guess and surmise just as he did. 

It is clearly shown, and all students of the plays and 
poems will admit, that a careful reading and study of the 
play called The Return from Parnassus will show that 
as early as 1601 it was believed that a person styled 
"Shakespeare" was the author of the two poems called 
Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece, for when 
Ingenioso calls out, "William Shakespeare," Judicio 
answers, referring unquestionably to Shakespeare, 

" Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape, 
His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life, 
Could but a graver subject him content, 
Without love's foolish lazy languishment." 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 315 

It is also as clearly shown from the dialogue between 
Kempe and Burbage that "the pestilent fellow," Ben 
Jonson, had brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, 
and that the shrewd fellow called Shakespeare had given 
Jonson a purge which had made him bewray his credit. 

Now when, where, and how did Jonson bring up Horace, 
giving the poets a pill, and who was the poet referred to 
as giving Jonson a purge? 

I maintain that the bringing up of Horace undoubtedly 
refers to the comical satire in the nature of the play com- 
posed by Jonson in 1600, called "The Poetaster and his 
arraignment," which was acted in 1600 and 1601 by the 
children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel. 

Whalley, in his life of Jonson, says that there was at 
this time a quarrel between Jonson and Dekker, and 
Dekker was personally alluded to in this play under the 
character of Crispinus. Dekker was bent on revenge and 
resolved, if possible, to conquer Jonson at his own weapons; 
for immediately after the rendition of the Poetaster, he 
wrote a play entitled " Satiro-mastix, or the untrussing of 
the humorous poet," and in this play Jonson is introduced 
under the character of Horace Junior. That the reader 
may see the force of my contention, I quote from Act 5, 
Scene 3 of the Poetaster, premising that Horace, whom 
Jonson brought up as a chief character in the play, thus 
addresses Caesar, who sits as judge over Dekker, alias 
Crispinus : 

" Please it, Great Caesar, I have pills about me. 
Mixt with the whitest kind of hellebore 
Would give him a light vomit that should purge 
His brain and stomach of those tumorous heats 
Might I have leave to minister unto him." 



316 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Thereupon the leave is given by Csesar to Horace, and 
he administers the pill to Crispinus, who casts up his 
affected, long, and uncommon words — such words as 
"retrograde, reciprocal, incubus, magnificate, turgidous, 
ventositous, prorumpted," words very much like some 
that are used in Troilus and Cressida. 

That Dekker was fond of great swelling words will 
appear from a cursory examination of his writings. I find 
in them such words as " anthropophagized, apishness, 
authentical, calcination, cibation, circumgitations, cir- 
cumgyrations, congelation, contentation, disquietness, gal- 
enist, encomiastic, enginous, inexorability, inquinations, 
Mephistophelian, niggardize, Paracelsian, phantasticality, 
paradoxical, Phlegetontic, quadrupartite, repercussive, 
sublimation, unthriftiness." 

If the reader will now turn to the play of "Satiro- 
mastix," written by Thomas Dekker in reply to Jonson's 
play, and publicly acted by the children of St. Paul's in 
ridicule of Jonson, he will find how a poetical purge was 
administered by Dekker to Jonson which made him 
bewray his credit. 

Crispinus, alias Dekker, says in the arraignment of 
Horace, alias Ben Jonson : 

" Under control of my dread sovereign, 
We are thy judges; thou that didst arraign, 
Art now prepared for condemnation; 
Should I but bid thy Muse stand to the Bar, 
Thyself against her wouldst give evidence 
For flat rebellion 'gainst the sacred laws 
Of divine poesy: herein most she missed, 
Thy pride and scorn made her turn Satirist, 
And not her love to virtue (as thou preachest) 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 317 

Or should we minister strong pills to thee, 

What lumps of hard and undigested stuff, 

Of bitter satirism, of arrogance 

Of Self-Love, of detraction, of a black 

And stinking insolence, should we fetch up? 

But none of these, we give thee what's more fit, 

With stinging nettles, crown his stinging wit." 

His sentence was as follows : 

"Imprimis you shall swear by Phoebus and the half a 
score Muses, lacking one; not to swear to hang yourself, 
if you thought any man, woman, or child could write plays 
and rhymes, as well favored ones as yourself, you shall 
swear not to bombast out a new play with the old linings 
of jests stolen from the Temple revels. Moreover, you shall 
not sit in a gallery, when your comedies and interludes 
have entered their actions and there make vile and bad 
faces at every line, to make gentlemen have an eye to you 
and to make players afraid to take your part. 

Besides, you must forbear to venture on the stage, 
when your play is ended, and to exchange courtesies and 
compliments with gallants in the Lords' room, to make 
all the house rise up in arms and to cry 'that's Horace, 
that's he, that's he, that's he, that pens and purges humors 
and diseases.' 

Thirdly and lastly of all save one, when your plays are 
misliked at Court, you shall not cry Mew, like a pussy cat, 
and say you are glad you write out of the courtiers' ele- 
ment. In briefness, when you sup in taverns amongst 
your betters, you shall swear not to dip your manners in 
too much sauce; not at table to fling epigrams, emblems, 
or play speeches about you (like hail stones) to keep you 
out of the terrible danger of the shot, upon pain to sit at 
the upper end of the table at the left hand of Carlo Buff on ; 
swear all this by Apollo and the eight or nine Muses. 

Horace. — By Apollo, Helicon, the Muses (who march 
three and three in rank), and by all that belongs to Par- 
nassus, I swear all this. 



318 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Crispinus. — That fearful wreath this honor is your due 
All poets shall be poet-apes, but you." 

In this connection it is worthy of note that so power- 
fully operative was Dekker's purge as administered to 
Jonson, that the latter was forced to issue an apologetical 
dialogue, in the course of which he says : 

" And since the comic Muse 
Hath proved so onerous to me, I will try 
If tragedy have a more kind aspect." 

The allusion to Shakespeare as the administerer of the 
purge to Jonson, seems to be a direct and clear designation 
of Thomas Dekker as Shakespeare. It is admitted by the 
commentators that William Shaksper never had to their 
knowledge any controversy whatever with Jonson. The 
editor of the "Ancient British Drama," when introducing 
to the reader The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge 
of Simony, says : 

" The Return from Parnassus, or the Scourge of Simony, 
was publicly acted, as the title page bears, by the students 
of St. John's College, Cambridge. It is a most extrava- 
gant, but a very curious performance. Hawkins, in his 
preface to the 'Origin of the English Drama,' says: 'It is 
perhaps the most singular composition in the English lan- 
guage.' The admirers of Shakespeare will be interested 
by the mention made of him in the scene where Kempe 
and Burbage, his fellow actors, discourse of his quarrel 
with Ben Jonson. It would seem that Shakespeare had 
espoused the cause of Dekker, in the dispute between him 
and Jonson; though we may look in vain for the 'pill' 
given to the latter by the Bard of Avon." 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 319 

Of course, the reader will understand that the state- 
ment of the editor that " it would seem that Shaksper had 
espoused the cause of Dekker" is a mere guess on the 
editor's part, since he declares that it is in vain to look 
for the pill given to Jonson by Shaksper. 

Ingleby, in his " Century of Praise," after quoting from 
the Return from Parnassus, says: "The passage, 'O 
that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up 
Horace, giving the poets a pill' alludes to Jonson's Poet- 
aster, Act 5, Scene 3. The subsequent remark, 'but our 
fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him 
bewray his credit' is mysterious. Where did our Bard 
put Jonson to his purgation? Assuredly neither Stephano 
nor Malvolio could have been a caricature of Jonson, who 
was neither a sot nor a gull." 

There is nothing mysterious about the giving of the 
purge, if we consider first that Shaksper was not referred 
to at all, and that Thomas Dekker was the man who gave 
Jonson the purge. The facts prove that Thomas Dekker, 
and Thomas Dekker only, administered the poetical purge 
to Jonson, for the two plays and the contemporary history 
so shows it. The Cambridge play also states that the two 
poems called Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece 
were written by Shakespeare, so-called, who gave the 
purge to Jonson. If, therefore, the statements contained 
in the play called The Return from Parnassus are 
reliable, then they identify Thomas Dekker as the Shake- 
speare who wrote the two poems, for the reason that it 
was Dekker who gave Jonson the purge which made him 
bewray his credit. 

To test the reliability of Ingenioso, the Introducer, and 
Judicio, the Judge, I point the student to the criticisms 



320 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

passed upon Spenser, Drayton, Marlowe, and Marston. 
Every reader will agree with me that their characters and 
standing as poets are truthfully delineated in the play. 
The students at Cambridge recognized the description 
given of Drayton as a just and truthful one, and Marston 
was known among his brother poets as "Kinsayder," the 
nickname given to him in the Cambridge play. 

It may be objected that in the play Dekker did not admin- 
ister a pill or purge to Jonson, but gave him a crown of 
stinging nettles. Literally speaking, that is true. But 
the writer of the play was not required, like a historian^ 
to be accurate. Jonson administered the pills to Dekker 
and Dekker put a wreath of stinging nettles on Jonson's 
head, and the purge he gave him was the oath he com- 
pelled him to take. Yet it was a dreadful purge to Jonson, 
for he had to apologize to the literary public for what he 
wrote in the Poetaster. 

In further confirmation of Jonson's jealousy and his 
intense hatred of one of the contemporary poets, I here 
copy a short poem of Jonson found among his Epi- 
grams. 

ON POET-APE. 

" Poor Poet-ape, that would be thought our chief, 
Whose words are e'n the frippery of wit, 
From brokage is become so bold a thief, 
As we, the robbed, leave rage and pity it. 
At first, he made low shifts, would pick and glean, 
Buy the reversion of old plays; now grown 
To a little wealth, and credit in the scene, 
He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own; 
And told of this, he slights it. Tut, such crimes 
The sluggish gaping auditor devours; 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 321 

He marks not whose 'twas first; and after-times 
May judge it to be his, as well as ours. 
Fool! as if half eyes will not know a fleece 
From locks of wool or shreds from the whole piece." 

The reader knows, of course, that the advocates for 
Bacon contend that these lines refer to William Shaksper, 
and that he was ridiculed by Jonson in the above as a 
poet-ape. But they overlook the fact that the poem 
points to a poet-ape as one who "would be thought our 
chief"; that is to say, the leader of the poets, an aspirant 
for the foremost place, and one who was a reviser, a mender 
and dresser of plays. 

If William Shaksper could scarcely write his own name, 
as the facts show, he could not aspire to be the chief poet 
among so many learned dramatists. Jonson, alias Horace, 
is made to point out Dekker, alias Crispinus, as one of the 
twin poet-apes in Satiro-mastix, when he says: "Here be 
epigrams upon Tucca. Divulge these among the gallants; 
as for Crispinus, that Crispinass, and Fannius, his play- 
dresser, who, to make the Muses believe their subjects' 
ears were starved and that there was a dearth of poesy, 
cut an innocent Moor in the middle and served him in 
twice; as for these twins, these poet-apes, their mimic 
tricks shall serve with mirth to feast our Muse, whilst their 
own starve." Besides, Jonson himself, in the Poetaster, 
shows that Dekker was one of the men aimed at in his 
play. In Scene 3 of Act 5, the indictment against Dekker, 
joined with Demetrius Fannius, reads thus in part : " You 
are before this time jointly and severally indicted and here 
presented to be arraigned upon the statute of calumny, 
or lex remnia, the one by the name of Rufus Laberius 
Crispinus, alias Crispinas, poetaster and plagiary; the 



322 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

other by the name of Demetrius Fannius, play dresser 
and plagiary." 

Who was the poet-ape referred to by Jonson? I think 
that it could not have been Dekker, for the reason that 
so far as we know anything of Dekker's pecuniary condi- 
tion, he lived, to quote a familiar phrase, from hand to 
mouth, and the reader will notice that the poet-ape is 
"now grown to a little wealth." 

It could not have been John Marston, whom the Shak- 
sperites describe as one of the two parcel poets whom 
Jonson satirized, because Marston dedicated the Malcon- 
tent, published in 1604, to Jonson in the following words: 

" Ben j amino Jonsonio" 

Poetae 

Elegantissimo 

Carissimo 

Amico 

suo candido et cordato 

Johannes Marston 

Musarum Alumnus 

Asperam hanc suam Thaliam. 

D. D. 

Some of the commentators identify Crispinus as Marston 
and Fannius as Dekker, and others reverse the names. 
I reject Marston because elsewhere he is ridiculed by 
Jonson as Carlo Buffon. 

While the solution of this question is not very impor- 
tant, I opine that Michael Drayton was one of the twins 
aimed at by Horace. He was a poet who had a right to 
be "and would be thought our chief," and as to a little 
wealth, the reader will remember that Daniel, in his letter 
to Egerton, describes Drayton as "the author of plays 



THOMAS DEKKER CONSIDERED. 323 

now daily presented on the public stages of London and 
the possessor of no small gains." The reader will also 
call to mind the fact that Jonson was not regarded by his 
contemporaries as an admirer of Drayton. Jonson him- 
self, in that poem which he called his" Vision on the Muses 
of his friend Michael Drayton," admits that such was the 
popular opinion, for at the very beginning of the poem 
he says: 

" It hath been questioned, Michael, if I be 
A friend at all, or if at all, to thee." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 

"This was a man." 

—Julius CsEsar, v, 5. 

The reader unfamiliar with the details of Drayton's 
life will be struck with the similarity as to its facts to the 
traditional account of Shaksper's life. Michael Drayton 
was born at Hartshill in Warwickshire in or near the 
Forest of Arden in the year 1563. Shaksper was born in 
the same county, Warwickshire, in the year 1564. Aubrey, 
in his manuscript kept in the Ashmolean Museum, says 
that Shaksper's father was a butcher. The same Aubrey 
says that Michael Drayton was the son of a butcher. 
Rowe says that Shaksper was withdrawn from a grammar 
school at an early age. Drayton was educated at the 
free Grammar School of Atherstone. In his poetical 
epistle to Reynolds, he says of himself: 

" For from my cradle, you must know that I 
Was still inclined to noble poesy, 
And when that once Pueriles I had read, 
And newly had my Cato construed, 
In my small self I greatly marveled then, 
Amongst all other, what strange kind of men 
These poets were ; and pleased with the name, 
To my mild tutor merrily I came 
(For I was then a proper goodly page, 
Much like a pigmy, scarce ten years of age), 
Clasping my slender arms about his thigh, 
'0, my dear master! can not you,' quoth I, 
' Make me a poet? Do it if you can, 
And you shall see I'll quickly be a man.' 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 325 

Who me thus answered, smiling, 'Boy,' quoth he, 
1 If you'll not play the wag, but I may see 
You ply your learning, I will shortly read 
Some poets to you.'" 

Drayton's education, as heretofore stated, was fostered 
by Sir Henry Goodere, of Polesworth, and Sir Walter 
Aston, of Blythe Hall. He was also greatly aided by the 
Countess of Bedford. 

That his tutor was right in regarding him as of a waggish 
disposition is supported by the expression applied to him by 
Meres, borrowed from First Henry IV, A. 2, S. 4: "There 
is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man." 

The dramatic works of Drayton will be first considered, 
my chief authority being the reliable Diary of Henslowe. 
Within the short space of five years, Drayton wrote or 
assisted in the composition of twenty plays for Henslowe's 
theatre. I will specify the names of the plays and the 
dates when they were begun or finished, as they truth- 
fully but ungrammatically appear in the Diary. 

On December 22, 1597, in conjunction with Anthony 
Monday, he wrote the play of Mother Redcap. On Jan- 
uary 20, 1598, he wrote the play of William Longsword. 
On March 3, 1598, aided by Thomas Dekker and Henry 
Chettle, he wrote the Famous Wars of Henry 1st and the 
Prince of Wales. On March 13, 1598, the entry in the 
Diary shows that he wrote with Henry Chettle a play, as 
Henslowe styles it, "Where a Welshman Appears." On 
March 30, 1598, with Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and 
Robert Wilson, he wrote Piers of Exton. On May 22, 
1598, collaborating with Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middle- 
ton, and John Webster, he wrote the Black Batman of 
the North. On June 10, 1598, he wrote Earl Goodwin 



326 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

and his Three Sons, with the aid of Thomas Dekker, Henry 
Chettle, and Robert Wilson. On June 24, 1598, together 
with Anthony Monday, Henry Chettle, and Robert Wilson, 
he wrote Richard Cceur de Leon's Funeral. On July 1, 
1598, aided by Thomas Dekker and Robert Wilson, he 
wrote the play of Madman's Morris. On July 17, 1598, 
assisted by the same two dramatists, he wrote Hannibal 
and Hermes. On August 9, 1598, he and Anthony Mon- 
day wrote a comedy for the Court, the name of which 
Henslowe omits. On August 10, 1598, he wrote Pierce of 
Winchester, with the help of Thomas Dekker and Robert 
Wilson. On August 25, 1598, in conjunction with Anthony 
Monday, Robert Wilson, and Thomas Dekker, he wrote 
Chance Medley. On August 30, 1598, he and Dekker 
wrote the play of Worse Afraid than Hurt. On September 
29, 1598, Dekker and he composed the first part of The 
Civil Wars in France. On October 16, 1598, the two also 
wrote the play of Conan, Prince of Denmark. On Novem- 
ber 3, 1598, they also wrote the second and third parts of 
the Civil Wars in France. Collaborating with Anthony 
Monday, Robert Wilson, and Richard Hathaway, on 
January 10, 1599, he wrote Owen Tudor. On October 
16, 1599, he produced the famous play of Sir John Old- 
castle, assisted by Anthony Monday, Robert Wilson, and 
Richard Hathaway. On June 3, 1600, with Thomas 
Dekker and Richard Hathaway, he composed the play of 
Fair Constance of Rome. On October 10, 1601, he wrote 
the Rising of Cardinal Wolsey, in collaboration with 
Anthony Monday, Henry Chettle, and Wentworth Smyth. 
On May 22, 1602, aided by Anthony Monday, Thomas 
Middleton, and John Webster, he wrote the play of Caesar's 
Fall. On May 29, 1602, he wrote a play, the title of which 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 327 

is very badly spelled in the Diary, but it appears to be the 
Two Harpies or Harps. In the composition of this play 
he was assisted by Dekker, Micldleton, Monday, and 
Webster. 

That he was a famous writer of tragedies, is stated by 
Barnfield in his "Remembrances of some English Poets" 
heretofore quoted; and Samuel Daniel, in his letter to 
Egerton, set out in Chapter XI, speaks of him as "the 
author of plays now daily presented on the public stages 
of London"; and he himself modestly refers, in the 47th 
stanza of his "Idea," to the time "when high desire of 
wit gave life and courage to my laboring pen." 

A summary of his poetical works, other than dramatic, 
extends from 1591 to 1630. They embrace the Harmony 
of the Church, Idea's Mirror, The Shepherd's Garland in 
nine Eclogues, Matilda, the Barons' Wars, Endymion and 
Phoebe, Legend of Robert the Duke of Normandy, Poems, 
lyric and pastoral, Odes, Eclogues, The Man in the Moon, 
The Battle of Agincourt, and Polyolbion. 

I will now give several specimens of his style. I cite 
two sonnets composed by him, the first to the river 
Ankor : 

"Clear Ankor, on whose silver-sanded shore 
My soul-shrined saint, my fair Idea, lies; 
blessed brook, whose milk-white swans adore 
The crystal stream refined by her eyes, 
Where sweet myrrh-breathing zephyr in the spring 
Gently distils his nectar-dropping showers, 
Where nightingales in Arden sit and sing 
Amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers. 
Say thus, fair brook, when thou shalt see thy Queen, 
Lo, here thy shepherd spent his wandering years, 
And in these shades, dear nymph, he oft hath been, 



328 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

And here to thee he sacrificed his tears : 
Fair Arden, thou my Tempe art alone 
And thou, sweet Ankor, art my Helicon." 

The next one is his last farewell to his lady-love : 

" Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, 

Nay I have done, you get no more of me; 

And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart 

That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; 

Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, 

And when we meet at any time again, 

Be it not seen in either of our brows 

That we one jot of former love retain; 

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 

When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, 

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death 

And innocence is closing up his eyes, 
Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over 
From death to life thou might' st him yet recover." 

These two sonnets are unsurpassed in the whole range 
of English literature. 

The following poem, never before published, was 
written by Drayton on the night before he died : 

" So well I love thee that without thee I 
Love nothing: if I might choose, I'd rather die 
Than be one day debarr'd thy company. 

Since beasts and plants do grow and live and move, 
Beasts are those men that such a life approve. 
He only lives that deadly is in love. 

The corn that in the ground is sown, first dies 

And of one seed, do many ears arise; 

Love, this world's corn, by dying multiplies. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 329 

The seeds of love first by thy eyes were thrown 

Into a ground untilled, a heart unknown 

To bear such fruit, till by thy hands was sown. 

Look, as your looking glass by chance may fall, 
Divide and break in many pieces small, 
And yet show forth the selfsame face in all, 

Proportions, features, graces just the same 
And in the smallest piece, as well the name 
Of fairest one discerns, as in the richest frame. 

So all my thoughts are pieces but of you 

Which put together makes a glass so true, 

As I therein no other face but yours can view." 

The description of Oberon's palace in Nymphidia is 
worthy of the Midsummer Night's Dream, and recalls 
Mercutio's description of Queen Mab: 

"This palace standeth in the air 
By necromancy placed there, 
That it no tempest needs to fear, 
Which way soe'er it blow it. 
And somewhat southward tow'rds the moon, 
Whence lies a way up to the moon; 
And thence the fairy can as soon 
Pass to the earth below it. 

The walls of spiders' legs are made, 
Well mortised and finely laid; 
It was the master of his trade 
It curiously that buildecl; 
The windows of the eyes of cats, 
And for the roof, instead of slats, 
Is covered with the skins of bats 
With moonshine that are gilded." 



330 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Before leaving Nymphiclia, I invite the reader's atten- 
tion to the following extract from the same poem. Oberon, 
the King of the fairies, is chasing Queen Mab, who is in 
love with the fairy Knight Pigwiggin: 

" But let us leave Queen Mab awhile, 
Through many a gate, o'er many a stile, 
That now had gotten by his wile, 

Her dear Pigwiggin kissing; 
And tell how Oberon doth fare, 
Who grew as mad as any hare 
When he had sought each place with care 
And found his Queen was missing. 

By grisly Pluto he doth swear, 

He rent his clothes and tore his hair, 

And as he runneth here and there 

An acorn cup he greeteth, 
Which soon he taketh by the stalk, 
About his head he lets it walk, 
Nor doth he any creature balk, 

But lays on all he meeteth. 

The Tuscan Poet doth advance 
The frantic Paladin of France, 
And those more ancient do enhance 

Alcides in his fury, 
And others Ajax Telamon, 
But to this time there hath been none 
So Bedlam as our Oberon, 

Of which I dare assure ye. 

And first encountering with a Wasp, 
He in his arms the fly doth clasp 
As though his breath he forth would grasp, 
Him for Pigwiggin taking: 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 331 

' Where is my wife, thou rogue?' quoth he; 
* Pigwiggin, she is come to thee ; 
Restore her, or thou diest by me!' 
Whereat the poor Wasp quaking 

Cries, 'Oberon, great Fairy King, 
Content thee, I am no such thing: 
I am a Wasp, behold my sting!' 

At which the Fairy started ; 
When soon away the Wasp doth go, 
Poor wretch, was never frighted so; 
He thought his wings were much too slow, 

O'erjoyed they so were parted. 

He next upon a Glow-worm light, 
You must suppose it now was night, 
Which, for her hinder part was bright, 

He took to be a devil, 
And furiously doth her assail 
For carrying fire in her tail; 
He thrashed her rough coat with his flail ; 

The mad King feared no evil. 

' Oh ! ' quoth the Glow-worm, ' hold thy hand, 

Thou puissant King of Fairy-land! 

Thy mighty strokes who may withstand? 

Hold, or of life despair I ! ' 
Together then herself doth roll, 
And tumbling down into a hole 
She seemed as black as any coal ; 

Which vext away the Fairy. 

From thence he ran into a hive: 
Amongst the bees he letteth drive, 
And down their combs begins to rive, 
All likely to have spoiled, 



332 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Which with their wax his face besmeared, 
And with their honey daubed his beard: 
It would have made a man afeard 
To see how he was moiled. 

A new adventure him betides; 

He met an Ant, which he bestrides, 

And post thereon away he rides, 

Which with his haste doth tumble; 
And came full over on her snout, 
Her heels so threw the dirt about, 
For she by no means could get out, 

But over him doth tumble. 

And being in this piteous case, 
And all be-slurred head and face, 
On runs he in this wild-goose chase, 

As here and there he rambles; 
Half blind, against a molehill hit, 
And for a mountain taking it, 
For all he was out of his wit 

Yet to the top he scrambles. 

And being gotten to the top, 

Yet there himself he could not stop, 

But down on the other side doth chop, 

And to the foot came rumbling; 
So that the grubs, therein that bred, 
Hearing such turmoil over head, 
Thought surely they had all been dead; 

So fearful was the jumbling. 

And falling down into a lake, 
Which him up to the neck doth take, 
His fury somewhat it doth slake ; 
He calleth for a ferry; 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 333 

Where you may some recovery note; 
What was his club he made his boat, 
And in his oaken cup doth float, 
As safe as in a wherry. 

Men talk of the adventures strange 
Of Don Quixote, and of their change 
Through which he arm6d oft did range, 

Of Sancho Pancha's travel; 
But should a man tell everything 
Done by this frantic Fairy King, 
And them in lofty numbers sing, 

It well his wits might gravel." 

It would be unfair to the reader to omit two of the 
dialogues found in the Muses' Elysium. They are extracted 
from Chalmer's "English Poets," fourth volume, and are 
called Nymphals. Drayton's description of the dialogues 
is contained in the first four lines of each. 

" This Nymphal of delights doth treat, 
Choice beauties and proportions neat, 
Of curious shapes and dainty features, 
Describ'd in two most perfect creatures." 

The dialogue is conducted by Dorida and Rodope. 

"D. My sweet, my sovereign Rodope, 
My dear delight, my love, 
That lock of hair thou sent'st to me, 
I to this bracelet wove ; 
Which brighter every day doth glow, 
The longer it is worn, 
As its delicious fellows do 
Thy temples that adorn. 
R. Nay, had I thine, my Dorida, 
I would them so bestow 



334 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

As that the wind upon my way 

Might backward make them flow; 

So should it in its chief excess 

Turn to becalmed air 

And quite forget all boisterousness 

To play with every hair. 
D. To me, like thine, had nature given 

A brow so arched, so clear, 

A front wherein so much of heaven 

Doth to each eye appear; 

The world should see I would strike dead 

The milky-way that's now, 

And say that nectar Hebe shed 

Fell all upon my brow. 
R. 0, had I eyes like Dorida's, 

I would enchant the day, 

And make the sun to stand at gaze 

Till he forgot his way; 

And cause his sister, Queen of streams, 

When so I list by night, 

By her much blushing at my beams 

To eclipse her borrowed light. 
D. Had I a cheek like Rodope's, 

In midst of which doth stand 

A grove of roses, such as these 

In such a snowy land, 

I would make the lily which we now 

So much for whiteness name, 

As drooping down, the head to bow 

And die for very shame. 
R. Had I a bosom like to thine, 

When I, it pleased to show, 

Where to the sky I would incline, 

I'd make the ethereal bow, 

My swannish breast, branch'd all with blue, 

In bravery like the spring; 

In winter to the general view 

Full summer forth should bring. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 335 

D. Had I a body like my dear, 

Were I so straight, so tall, 

Or if so broad my shoulders were, 

Had I a waist so small; 

I would challenge the proud Queen of Love 

To yield to me for shape, 

And I should fear that Mars or Jove 

Would venture for my rape. 
R. Had I a hand like thee, my girl, 

(This hand, let me kiss) 

These ivory arrows, pil'cl with pearl, 

Had I a hand like this ; 

I would not doubt at all to make 

Each finger of my hand 

To task, swift Mercury to take 

With his enchanting wand. 
D. Had I a thigh like Rodope's 

Which 'twas my chance to view 

When, lying on yon bank of ease 

The wind thy skirt up blew; 

I would say it were a column wrought 

To some intent divine, 

And for our chaste Diana sought 

A pillar for her shrine. 
R. Had I a leg but like to thine, 

That were so neat, so clean, 

A swelling calf so small, so fine, 

An ankle round and lean, 

I'd say to nature she doth miss 

Her old skill, and maintain 

She showed her masterpiece in this, 

Not to be done again. 
D. Had I that foot hid in those shoes, 

Proportioned to my height, 

Short heels, thin instep, even toes, 

A sole so wondrous straight, 

The foresters and nymphs at this 

Amazed all should stand, 



336 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

And kneeling down, should meekly kiss 
The prints left in the sand." 

The next dialogue is conducted by Mertilla, Claia, and 
Cloris, and the subject is set out in the first four lines, as 
follows : 

" A nymph is married to a fay, 
Great preparations for the day, 
All rites of nuptials, they recite you 
To the bridal, and invite you. 

M. But will our Tita wed this fay? 
Cla. Yea, and to-morrow is the day. 
M. But why should she bestow herself 

Upon this dwarfish fairy elf? 
Cla. Why, by her smallness, you may find 

That she is of the fairy kind. 

And therefore apt to choose her mate 

Where she did her beginning take; 

Besides he's deft and wondrous airy 

And of the noblest of the fairy, 

Chief of the Crickets of much fame 

In fairy, a most ancient name ; 

But to be brief, 'tis cleanly done. 

The pretty wench is wooed and won. 
Clo. If this be so, let us provide 

The ornaments to fit our bride; 

For they, knowing she doth come 

From us, in Elysium, 

Queen Mab will look she should be drest 

In those attires we think our best; 

Therefore some curious things let's give her, 

Ere to her spouse, we her deliver. 
M . I'll have a jewel for her ear 

Which, for my sake, I'll have her wear; 

'Twill be a dewdrop and therein 

Of Cupids I will have a twin 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 337 

Which, struggling with their wings shall break 

The bubble, out of which shall leak 

So sweet a liquor as shall move 

Each thing that smells, to be in love. 
Cla. Believe me, girl, this will be fine, 

And to this pendant, then take mine, 

A cup in fashion of a fly 

Of the lynx's piercing eye 

Wherein there sticks a sunny ray 

Shot in, through the clearest day, 

Whose brightness Venus' self did move 

Therein to put her drink of love, 

Which for more strength she did distil. 

The limbeck was a phoenix quill; 

At this cup's delicious brink, 

A fly approaching but to drink, 

Like amber or some precious gum 

It transparent doth become. 
Clo. For jewels for her ears she's sped; 

But for a dressing for her head, 

I think for her I have a tire 

That all fairies shall admire; 

The yellows in the full blown rose, 

Which in the top, it doth enclose. 

Like drops of gold, one shall be hung 

Upon her tresses, and among 

Those scattered seeds (the eye to please) 

The wings of the cantharides, 

Linked with the rainbow that doth rail 

Those moons in, in the peacock's tail; 

Whose dainty colors, being mixed 

With the other beauties, and so fixed 

Her lovely tresses shall appear 

As though upon a flame they were ; 

And to be sure she shall be gay 

We'll take those feathers from the jay 

About her eyes in circlets set, 

To be our Tita's coronet. 



338 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

M. Then, dainty girls, I make no doubt, 
But we shall neatly send her out ; 
But let's among ourselves agree 
Of what her wedding gown shall be. 

Cla. Of pansy, pink and primrose leaves, 
Most curiously laid on in threaves; 
And all embroidery to supply, 
Powdered with flowers of rosemary; 
A trail about the skirt shall run 
The silkworm's finest, newly spun, 
And every seam, the nymphs shall sew 
With smallest of the spinners' clue, 
And having done their work, again 
These to the church, shall bear her train, 
Which for our Tita we will make 
Of the cast slough of a snake, 
Which, quivering as the wind doth blow, 
The sun shall it, like tinsel show. 

Clo. And being led to meet her mate, 

To make sure that she want no state, 

Moons from the peacock's tail, we'll shred 

With feathers from the pheasant's head, 

Mixed with the plume of so high price, 

The precious bird of paradise; 

Which to make up, our nymphs shall ply 

Into a curious canopy. 

Borne o'er her head (by our inquiry) 

By elfs, the fittest of the fairy. 

M . But all this while, we have forgot 
The buskins, neighbors, have we not? 

Cla. We had; for those, I'll fit her now, 
They shall be of the lady-cow. 
The dainty shell upon her back 
Of crimson, strewed with spots of black; 
Which, as she holds a stately pace, 
Her leg will wonderfully grace. 

Clo. But then for music of the best, 

This must be thought on for the feast. 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 339 

M. The nightingale, of birds most choice, 

To do her best, shall strain her voice ; 

And to this bird, to make a set, 

The Mavis, Merle and Robinet; 

The Lark, the Linnet and the Thrush, 

That make a choir of every bush. 

But for still music, we will keep 

The Wren and Titmouse, which to sleep 

Shall sing the bride, when she's alone, 

The rest into their chambers gone, 

And like those upon ropes that walk 

On gossamer from stalk to stalk, 

The tripping fairies, tricks shall play, 

The evening of her wedding day. 
Cla. But for the bride bed, what were fit? 

That hath not been talked of yet. 
Clo. Of leaves of roses, white and red, 

Shall be the covering of her bed; 

The curtains, valance, testers, all 

Shall be the flower imperial; 

And for the fringe, it all along 

With azure harebells shall be hung; 

Of lilies shall the pillows be, 

With down stripped off the butterfly. 

Come, bright girls, come all together 

And bring all your offerings hither. 

You must have a buxom bevy: 

All your goodly graces levy. 

Come in majesty and state 

Our bridal here to celebrate. 

Summon all the sweets that are 

To this nuptial to repair, 

Till with throngs, themselves they smother, 

Strongly stifling one another, . 

And at last they all consume 

And vanish in one rich perfume. 

With tapers let the temple shine; 

Sing to Hymen hymns divine; 



340 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Load the altars till there rise 

Clouds from the burnt sacrifice. 

With your censers, swing aloof 

Their smells till they ascend the roof. 

Violins, strike up aloud; 

Ply the gittern, scour the crowd; 

Let the nimble hand belabor 

The whistling pipe and drumbling tabor. 

To the full, the bagpipe rack, 

Till the swelling leather crack. 

The Gods, this feast as to begin, 

Have sent of their ambrosia in. 

Then serve we up the straw's rich berry, 

The respas and Elysium cherry, 

The virgin berry, from the flowers, 

In Hybla wrought in Flora's bowers. 

Full bowls of nectar, and no girl 

Carouse but in dissolved pearl; 

For our Tita is this day 

Married to a noble fay." 

The laudations of Drayton as a poet were many and 
deserving. The eulogium of Robert Tofte, the translator 
of Ariosto's "Satires," has been heretofore cited. 

William Browne, one of England's greatest poets, and 
a contemporary, after eulogizing Sidney and Spenser, 
thus speaks of Drayton: 

" Drayton, among the worthiest of all those, 
The glorious laurel or the Cyprian rose 
Have ever crowned, doth claim in every line 
An equal honor from the sacred Nine : 
For if old time could, like the restless main, 
Roll himself back into his spring again, 
And on his wings bear this admired Muse, 
For Ovid, Virgil, Homer to peruse ; 
They would confess that never happier pen 
Sung of his love, his country and the men." 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 341 

Writing of the Polyolbion, a work of great labor and 
infinite study, which associated Drayton's name with the 
rivers, forests, hills, mountains, and valleys of England, 
George Wither, a contemporary poet, says : 

" And some unborn will say, 
(I speak the truth, whatever men think to-day), 
Ages to come, shall hug thy poesy, 
As we, our clear friends' pictures, when they die." 

Ben Jonson, in what he calls his ' 'Vision on the Muses 
of his friend, Michael Drayton," when he adverts to his 
"Battle of Agincourt," says: 

" There thou art Homer ; pray thee use the style 
Thou hast deserved, and let me read the while 
Thy catalogue of ships, exceeding his, 
Thy list of aids and forces, so it is 
The poet's act; and for his country's sake, 
Brave are the musters that the Muse will make; 
And when he ships them, where to use their arms, 
How do his trumpets breathe! What loud alarms! 
Look how we read the Spartans were inflamed 
With bold Tyrsetus' verse ; when thou art named, 
So shall our English youth urge on and cry 
An Agincourt! an Agincourt! or die." 

Doubtless I have already satisfied the reader that I 
had good cause to select Drayton as one of the three poets 
who were worthy to be called and known as Shakespeare; 
and as I will hereafter show that he had "a main finger" 
(to use Heywood's expression) in the making of some, 
at least, of the Shakespeare plays, it is proper that I should 
summarize the additional reasons for exalting Drayton 
to so high and honorable a position. 



342 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Drayton was not merely a scholar, a wit and a good 
poet, but he was thoroughly versed in English history; 
and the historical plays are in line with the events described 
in his historical poems. He himself in his rhyming epistle 
to Sandys, Treasurer for the Virginia Colony, says, 

" It was my hap before all other men 
To suffer shipwreck by my forward pen, 
When King James entered, at which joyful time 
I taught his title to this isle in rhyme 
And to my part did all the Muses win, 
With high-pitch paeans to applaud him in." 

It could not have been on account of his gratulatory 
poem to King James that the new sovereign flouted him. 
A man, superior in station, is not apt to treat with con- 
tempt another who eulogizes him, especially in well-written 
poetry. A much more plausible and satisfactory reason 
could be found in the fact that James must have known 
or suspected that Drayton was one of the writers of the 
play of Richard the Second, which figures so largely in 
the examination of the deluded followers of Essex, for 
that play treated of the deposing of a king. That Drayton 
was one of the collaborators in the composition of that 
play, I think that I shall be able to show. 

There are two other circumstances heretofore alluded 
to, which had to be weighed in the consideration of Dray- 
ton's claims. The reader will remember that Heywood, 
in giving nicknames to his contemporary poets, including 
Shake-speare, leaves out the name of Drayton; and 
Webster, in praising the industrious Shakespeare and 
others, also omits Drayton. Some of these poets were 
identified by special names. Thus Marston was called 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 343 

"Kinsayder," Monday was known as " Lazarus Piot," and 
Drayton was "the Gentle Shepherd or Rowland," and 
Davies styled him the "poet Decius." 

Another remarkable circumstance in connection with 
the Shakespeare question is the fact that after the poem 
of Tarquin and Lucrece appeared in 1593, Drayton, in 
1594, published his poem of Matilda, the seventh stanza of 
which reads as follows : 

" Lucrece, of whom proud Rome hath boasted long, 
Lately revived to live another age, 
And here arrived to tell of Tarquin's wrong, 
Her chaste denial and the tyrant's rage, 
Acting her passions on our stately stage ; 
She is remembered, all forgetting me, 
Yet I as fair and chaste as e'er was she." 

In all succeeding editions of the poem, Drayton omitted 
this stanza. As Collier says in his introduction to the 
poem of Lucrece, "the stanza above quoted contains a 
clear allusion to Shakespeare's Lucrece, and a question 
then presents itself, why Drayton entirely omitted it in 
the after impressions of his Matilda." 

There is another singular circumstance in connection 
with the poem of Lucrece. In 1624, eight years after the 
death of William Shaksper, an edition of Lucrece was 
published which purported to be newly revised and which 
was accompanied also by marginal explanatory notes. 

Naturally, only the author of the poem would take so 
much trouble as appears to have been taken as to this 
edition of Lucrece, and no dramatic poet of the time 
indulged in marginal notes, as the reader will find, except 
Michael Drayton. His habit in respect to revision will be 
hereafter considered in connection with the plays. 



344 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Again, the reader of lines 400 to 413 of Lucrece, who 
compares them with the 57th and 58th stanzas of the 
sixth canto of Drayton's Barons' Wars, will be struck 
with the wonderful resemblance. For the benefit of the 
casual reader, I will place them in regular order one after 
the other. 

LUCRECE, LINES 400 TO 406. 

" Her hair, like golden threads, play'd with her breath 
O modest wantons! Wanton modesty' 
Showing life's triumph in the map of death, 
And death's dim look in life's mortality; 
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify, 
As if between them twain, there were no strife, 
But that life lived in death, and death in life." 

drayton's barons' wars, 57. 

" Her loose hair look'd like gold, (a word too base 
Nay more than sin, but so to name her hair) 
Declining as to kiss her fairer face, 
No word is fair enough for thing so fair, 
Nor ever was there epithet could grace 
That by much praising, which we much impair, 
And where the pen fails, pencils can not show it." 

lucrece, lines 407 to 413. 

" Her breasts like ivory globes, arched with blue 
A pair of maiden worlds unconquered, 
Save of their lord, no bearing yoke they knew, 
And him by oath they truly honored, 
These worlds to Tarquin, new ambition bred, 
Who, like a foul usurper, went about 
From this fair throne to heave the owner out." 



michael drayton considered. 345 

drayton's barons' wars, 56. 

" Where her fair breasts at liberty were let, 
Whose violet veins in branched riverets flow, 
And Venus' swans and milky doves were set 
Upon those swelling mounts of driven snow; 
Whereon while Love to sport himself doth get, 
He lost his way, nor back again could go, 
But with those banks of beauty set about, ^ 
He wandered still, yet never could get out." 

It must be considered also that Drayton was a thorough 
scholar, a master and maker of words, a man familiar with 
the Court, with the most distinguished and learned men 
of his time, with all the customs and habits of the people, 
with the idioms of Warwickshire, with Gloucestershire 
where, at Clifford, he sojourned in the summer months, 
with the plants and flowers, the hills, the mountains, and 
the rivers of the British Isles. Hunter says, "I see not 
why Drayton should not now be placed, as he was by his 
contemporaries, in the first class of English poets." Speak- 
ing of the Polyolbion, D'Israeli said in the " Amenities of 
Literature," "The grand theme of this poet was his father- 
land. The Muse of Drayton passes by every town and 
tower; each tells some tale of ancient glory or of some 
worthy who must never die. The local associations of 
legends and customs are animated by the personifications 
of mountains and rivers; and often, in some favorite 
scenery, he breaks forth with all the emotion of a true 
poet. He has not, says Lamb, left a rivulet so narrow 
that it may be stepped over without honorable mention, 
and has associated hills and streams with life and passions 
beyond the dreams of old mythology." 



346 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

I have not been able to tell the reader who were Dray- 
ton's parents, or whether he was married or single, al- 
though I believe that a search would show that he was 
married, probably in Dublin, to Mary Martin; nor whether 
he made a will or not. It appears that in the latter part 
of his life, he lodged in London at the Bay Window house 
next to the east end of St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet 
Street; and that he died there on December 23, 1631. 

"The only manuscript in the British Museum, on 
Drayton, is number 24,491, Hunter's Chorus vatuum. It 
refers to a poetical brochure entitled 'Parthea, a funeral 
pyramid to the honor of the very virtuous gentlewoman 
(now in glory), Mrs. Elizabeth Gray, daughter of Richard 
Gray, Esquire, and sometime wife of J. M. Martin, of 
Cork, by his sister Mrs. Mary Drayton, allied to the prince 
of English poets, Michael Drayton, Esquire, interred at 
Atherstone, de anno 1614, aetat 24.' " 

In the ably conducted debate • between Appleton 
Morgan and Isaac H. Piatt, reported in New Shakespeare- 
ana for April and July, 1903, Mr. Morgan calls attention 
to the fact that the plays are packed with Warwickshire- 
isms and that the Warwickshire dialect could not have 
been placed in the plays with a design of promoting their 
popularity or success. Mr. Morgan collected four hundred 
and eighty-eight of these isms. And as to names, he has 
found a frequent use of Warwickshire names. For instance 
in the Taming of the Shrew will be found such Warwick- 
shire names as Sly, William Visor, Peter Turf, Henry 
Pimpernell, Marion Hackett, Wincot, old John Naps of 
Greece, and many others. He also calls attention to the 
fact that the plays are packed with puns, of which the 
significance depends upon a Warwickshire pronunciation 



MICHAEL DRAYTON CONSIDERED. 347 

of the vowels, instancing the pun as to " ship " and " sheep," 
in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1, Scene 1, line 73. 

In forming an opinion, therefore, as to whether or not 
Michael Drayton was one of the composers of part or all 
of the Shakespeare plays, the reader must keep in mind 
the fact that Drayton was born, educated, and trained in 
Warwickshire. 

A complete edition of Drayton's works would be very 
acceptable to the lovers of good English literature. Such 
an edition was projected by the Rev. Richard Hooper, 
and three volumes appeared in 1886, under the alluring 
but deceptive title of "The complete works of Michael 
Drayton." These volumes, however, contained only the 
poems of Polyolbion and the Harmony of the Church, 
omitting his best poems; and the publication then stopped, 
probably because of the death of the accomplished editor; 
and there is no good edition of his con. pie te works. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

WHAT THE DEDICATIONS SHOW. 

"By indirections find directions out." 

— Hamlet, ii, 1. 

The prose writings connected with the Shakespeare 
plays and poems may be properly divided into three classes 
or parts. One part consists of the letters scattered at 
intervals throughout the plays. Another consists of the 
dedications of the two poems; and the third consists of 
the argument which precedes the poem of Tarquin and 
Lucrece. It is not my purpose, neither is it necessary, 
to dissect or specially consider either the letters or the 
argument, because, if the plays were composed by col- 
laborators, or, if after they or any of them were com- 
pleted, they were revised, altered, or dressed by another 
than the original composer, any argument in favor of a 
particular authorship based upon them would be regarded 
as unreliable, or at the least, disputable. 

The argument preceding the poem of Tarquin and 
Lucrece is very like to that which precedes Ben Jonson's 
Sejanus, as the reader will find on examination. I have 
carefully compared them and believe that Jonson was the 
composer of both arguments. 

In a lesser degree, the objection of unreliability applies 
to the two dedications, but not for the same reason. I 
wish to be entirely frank with the reader. No matter 
how strong an argument in favor of any particular writer 
may be drawn from the dedications, it can be objected 
with some show of truth that both of the dedications 



WHAT THE DEDICATIONS SHOW. 349 

might have been composed and furnished by the pub- 
lishers. Every student of English literature knows that 
publishers took great liberties with unclaimed productions 
during the Elizabethan era. Printers and publishers 
then, unlike those of the present day, were despots. They 
assigned the authorship of a work to any man they pleased 
and they dedicated it to whom they pleased. Not only 
that, but they did what they deemed best for their own 
interests with a manuscript, abridging or enlarging it to 
suit themselves. Nash, the satirist and dramatist, says 
that the printers added four acts to his play, "The Isle 
of Dogs," without his consent or the least guess of his 
drift or scope. Bacon, in his dedication of his Essays to 
his brother Anthony, touches upon the same despotic 
custom when he says, " These fragments of my conceits 
were going to print; to labor the stay of them had been 
troublesome and subject to interpretation; to let them 
pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive 
by untrue copies, or by some garnishment which it might 
please any that should set them forth to bestow upon 
them." 

Wither, in his " Scholar's Purgatory," 1625, says of pub- 
lishers, " If he gets any written matter in his power likely 
to be vendible, whether the author be willing or not, he 
will publish it, and it shall be contrived and named also 
according." Besides, the mere fact of a similarity in the 
phraseology as between one or both of the dedications 
and a prior dedication to the play of another man, would 
strengthen the doubt. As for instance, in the dedication 
of the play of Cornelia, presumably written by Thomas 
Kyd, are these words, " But chiefly that I would attempt 
the dedication of so rough unpolished a work to the mrvey 



350 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

of your so worthy self. . . . And never spend one hour of 
the day in some kind service to your honor and another 
of the night in wishing you all happiness." 

Again, in the dedication of Whitney's "Choice of 
Emblems," published in 1586, occurs also the following 
striking resemblance to the later Venus and Adonis dedi- 
cation: "Being abashed that my ability can not afford 
them such as are fit to be offered up to so honorable a 
survey; yet if it shall like your honor to allow of any of 
them, I shall think my pen set to the book in happy 
hour, and it shall encourage me to assay some matter of 
more moment as soon as leisure will furnish my desire in 
that behalf." 

In considering therefore what my researches show as 
to the two dedications, the reader will understand that 
the argument from the dedications can not be a very 
convincing one. 

Dedications in the time of Elizabeth and James, which 
emanated from the authors, may be classified thus : There 
were those which were intended to obtain the patronage 
of some distinguished man or some friend of literature. 
There were those also which were intended as courteous 
acts to those who had befriended, or were relatives of, 
the writer. And then, again, there were those which 
were carelessly made without regard for or reference to 
anybody. 

An examination of the dedications written by Michael 
Drayton shows that they were mainly of the first class. 
He dedicated his compositions to Aston or Goodere, or to 
those of the nobility who could help him or had helped him 
as patrons. Bacon's dedications belonged to both the 
first and second class, but they were made chiefly to his 



WHAT THE DEDICATIONS SHOW. 351 

friends and kinsmen; while Dekker's dedications are 
found in the first and third class. Naturally, if Drayton 
had written the Venus and Adonis, as the first heir of his 
invention, and had caused it to be published, he would 
have dedicated the poem to Sir Henry Goodere or Sir 
Walter Aston, for they were his sincere friends and patrons. 
I have examined the dedications made by Drayton and I 
can not find in them any particular resemblance to the 
dedications of the two poems. In trying Bacon, I find 
some resemblances. 

In the Venus and Adonis dedication, the writer says: 
"I account myself highly praised," while Bacon, in a 
letter to the Lord Treasurer, Vol. 6, Edition 1803, page 
385, says, "I account myself much bound." 

In the Tarquin and Lucrece dedication, the writer 
says, "The warrant I have of your honorable disposition," 
while Bacon, in a letter to Lord-Keeper Egerton, Vol. 6, 
page 32, says, "of your Lordship's honorable disposition, 
both generally and to me." In the same dedication 
occur the words, " Being part in all I have devoted yours," 
while in the dedication to Henry the Seventh, Vol. 5, 
page 4, Bacon says, "In part of my acknowledgment to 
your Highness." 

In the ending of the Venus and Adonis dedication, 
the writer says, "which I wish may always answer your 
own wish," and in that of the Tarquin and Lucrece, he 
says, "To whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all 
happiness. 

Your Lordship's in all duty." 

Bacon, in a letter to Essex, Vol. 6, page 8, says, 

" I wish you all honor, 

Your Lordship's in most faithful duty." 



352 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

And at page 13 he says, " And so I wish you all increase 
of honor. Your honor's poor kinsman in faithful service 
and duty." 

And again, Vol. 5, page 220, he says in a letter to 
Burghley, "I wish your Lordship all happiness," and at 
page 270, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, he 
says, "And so I wish your Grace all prosperity." Idem, 
pages 272 and 278, 304 and 325. 

If Bacon wrote the two dedications, he had in mind 
his relation to the Earl of Southampton, who was Bacon's 
friend, and on whom also Bacon in return conferred many 
favors. As an evidence of this continuing friendship, 
Bacon wrote to him, Vol. 5, page 281, referring to the 
accession of James, "it is as true as a thing that God 
knoweth, that this 'great change hath wrought in me no 
other change towards your Lordship than this, that I 
may safely be to you now, which I was truly before." 

In the dedication of his translation of the Psalms, 
made while he was on a sick-bed, he said to Herbert, the 
dedicatee, "it being my manner for dedications to choose 
those that I hold most fit for the argument." 

I can find nothing in the dedications written by Dekker 
at all resembling the two dedications now under con- 
sideration, but he throws light upon the habit of the 
writers of that period as to dedications when, in the dedi- 
cation to "News from Hell," written in 1606, speaking of 
patrons, he says, "The strongest shields that I know for 
such fights (against the reception of a book) are good 
patrons; from whom writers claim such ancient privileges 
that howsoever they find entertainment, they make bold 
to make acquaintance with them (though never so merely 
strangers) without blushing." 



WHAT THE DEDICATIONS SHOW. 353 

Dekker dedicated his Satiro-mastix to the World, 
beginning thus: "World, I was once resolved to be round 
with thee, because I know 'tis thy fashion to be round 
with everybody; but the wind shifting his point, the vane 
turned; yet because thou wilt sit as Judge of all matters 
(though for thy labor thou wearest Midas' ears and art 
monstrum horrendum, informe inyens cui lumen ademptum., 
whose great Polyphemean eye is put out) I care not much 
if I make description before thy universality of that terri- 
ble Poetamachia commenced between Horace, the Second, 
and a band of lean-witted poetasters." When he wrote 
the Pleasant Comedy of the Gentle Craft, he dedicated 
it to "all good fellows, professors of the gentle craft; of 
what degree soever." 

After examining all the dedications of his books and 
plays, I find no resemblance in the style or words to those 
which precede the two poems. 

Tracing by the dedications, therefore, is not a fair 
or very convincing test. There is, however, in the study 
and examination of the dedications to the two poems, 
one fact which is worthy of consideration. It will be 
noticed by the reader that the signatures to the dedica- 
tions are thus spelled: "William Shakespeare." I give 
as my authority for this statement the "Outlines" of 
Halliwell-Phillips. 

If, now, the reader will turn back to Chapter VIII, 
he will find that Sir Frederic Madden, who examined the 
original will of the man of Stratford, insists that he wrote 
his name thus "Shakspere." Chalmers and Drake, who 
were believers in Shaksper's authorship of the plays and 
whom Madden antagonized on this point, claimed that he 
wrote his surname thus, " Shaksj)eare, ,J while I contend 



354 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

that an examination carefully made of the facsimiles 
shows that William of Stratford wrote his name thus, 
" Shaksper." Now, whether he wrote his own name as 
Shakspere, Shakspeare, or Shaksper, he did not write his 
name as "Shakespeare" when he signed the mortgage, 
deed, and will, as the dedicator of the two poems did. 

Of course it is easy to suggest that the discrepancy 
might have been caused by a blunder of the printer; but 
a young writer who was putting out a poem as the first 
heir of his invention and dedicating it to a powerful noble- 
man whose patronage and favor might be of great value 
to him, would very naturally take care that his name 
should be spelled properly. He might be careless as to 
printers' mistakes in the body of the poem, but he would 
not suffer his surname to be incorrectly printed at the 
end of the dedication, if he were the real author of the 
dedicated work. And if the printer made a mistake as 
to the name of the dedicator of the Venus and Adonis, 
it would be natural that the composer would correct the 
mistake in the succeeding dedication of the Tarquin and 
Lucrece. He would desire to be made famous in the 
literary world in his own name. While a writer might 
wish to conceal his name by the use of a pseudonym, he 
would not use a pseudonym so like his own in spelling 
and pronunciation as Shakespeare is to Shakspeare, 
Shakspere, or Shaksper. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 

" Thou art not what thou seem'st." 

— Lucrece, 600. 

While the reader may have doubts as to the authorship 
of the dedications prefixed to the two poems, I have af- 
firmed and now reiterate that he will accept as an es- 
tablished fact that each of the two poems was the work of 
one man only, and he also believes and always will believe 
with unshaken and unshakable faith that he who wrote the 
two poems was the William Shakespeare or Shake-speare 
of the plays. The poems, therefore, furnish the key which 
in the hands of the skillful scholar and searcher will 
unlock the door of the literary chamber which contains 
the name of the hidden composer of the best and most 
noteworthy portions of the plays. I may not be that 
scholar and searcher, and I may give an erroneous opinion, 
but I shall at least have paved the way for more learned 
examiners, who will be able to find the real author of the 
poems and to certify whether I am right or wrong. 

An examination of the two poems shows the following 
peculiarities : 

First. — That the writer was very much in the habit of 
using the termination "eth" as applied to the third person 
singular of the indicative mood and present tense. 

To facilitate the examination, I have separated and 
alphabetically arranged the verbs so used in each poem. 
In the Venus and Adonis, they are as follows: 



356 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

" Arise th, barketh, breaketh (3), breathe th (3), breed- 
eth, burneth, coasteth, comforteth, deviseth, doteth, 
falleth, feedeth, filleth (2), gazeth, goeth, haste th (2), 
heaveth, languisheth, leadeth, listeth, looketh, loseth, 
marketh, noteth, presenteth, raineth, recketh, relenteth, 
relieve th, remaineth, resisteth, revive th, seemeth (2), 
seizeth, shooteth, sinketh, sorteth, staineth, suggesteth, 
swelleth, thriveth, tormenteth, upheaveth, waxeth, whet- 
teth, willeth." 

In the Rape of Lucrece, they are as follows: 

"Attendeth, awaketh, boundeth, burneth, coucheth, 
dazzleth, dreadeth, easeth, excelleth, fawneth, feareth, 
gazeth, granteth, greeteth, healeth, imparteth, leadeth, 
lendeth, lighteth, maketh, marcheth, needeth, panteth, 
pineth, pleadeth, rouseth, slaketh, smiteth, starteth, 
stealeth, suspecteth, urgeth, vanisheth, wanteth (2)." 

In the Venus and Adonis, of eleven hundred and 
ninety-four lines, there are fifty uses of the termination 
"eth." In the Rape of Lucrece, containing eighteen 
hundred and fifty-five lines, there are thirty-five instances 
of such use. 

No such frequent use of this termination is found 
either in the works of Drayton or Dekker. While both 
used the termination occasionally, they only used it 
moderately. It was not so as to Bacon. He indulged in 
an excessive use of the termination, much more so than 
any other writer of that time. This will clearly appear 
to the general reader by a perusal of his letters and literary 
or legal papers. I will give a few instances from his 
works, casually jotted down: 

"Abateth, accepteth, addeth, agreeth, appeareth, ask- 
eth, aspireth, assureth, becometh, beholdeth, breaketh, 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 357 

breedeth, bringeth (2), carrieth, cause th, change th, cometh 
(2), consulteth, consume th, containeth, corrupteth, dash- 
eth, depriveth, desireth, destroyeth, diminisheth, distill- 
eth, disturbeth, divideth, eclipseth, embaseth, encourageth, 
endangereth, enricheth, envieth (2), establisheth, esteem- 
eth, examine th, expresseth, extinguisheth, falleth, faireth 
(2), filleth, flieth, followeth (3),gathereth, giveth, goeth(3), 
governeth, healeth, holdeth (2), hurteth, importeth, im- 
poseth, inclineth, increaseth, incurreth, inspireth, inviteth, 
joineth, keepeth (2), kindleth (2), knoweth (2), leaveth, 
looketh, loseth, maketh (9), noteth (4), openeth (2), 
passe th (3), perfecteth, perplexeth, pointeth, presseth, 
pretendeth, prevaileth, procureth, propoundeth, putteth 
(2), raise th, ravisheth, redoubleth, remaineth, removeth, 
requireth, resembleth, resteth, returneth, saileth, seemeth 
(6), selleth, serveth (2), settleth, sheweth (2), signifieth, 
sinketh, sorteth, spendeth, spreadeth, standeth (3), stay- 
eth, studieth, sufficeth, taketh, talketh, teacheth (2), 
thinketh. threateneth, traduce th, traveleth (3), troubleth, 
turneth (6), walketh, windeth, worketh, yieldeth." 

While this use of the termination "eth" was a peculiar- 
ity of that era, and while instances of its use may be 
found in the works of Drayton and Dekker, Bacon's 
works are conspicuous for the profuse and extravagant 
use thereof. 

Secondly. — The writer of the two poems often used a 
word which was not to be found by me, after diligent 
search, but once in the writings of Drayton and Dekker. 
I refer to the word "whereat," inserting here in full for 
the reader's convenience the lines wherein it is found. 

In Venus and Adonis, the reader will find it thus 
used: 



358 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



"The boar, quoth she; whereat a sudden pale." 

— L. 589. 

" Whereat, the impartial gazer late did wonder." 

— L. 748. 

" Whereat amazed, as one that unaware." 

— L. 823. 

"And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans." 

— L. 829. 

" Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder." 

— L. 878. 

" Whereat her tears began to turn their tide." 

— L. 979. 

" Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn." 

— L. 1026. 

" Whereat each tributary subject quakes." 

— L. 1045. 

In the Rape of Lucrece it is used twice, thus : 
" Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth." 

— L. 178. 

" Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer." 

— L. 264. 

Drayton seems to have been particularly fond of the 
word "whenas" and he uses it a great deal in the " Barons' 
Wars," so much so that it will attract the reader's atten- 
tion, but neither he nor Dekker use the word "whereat." 
"Whenas" seems to have beer; a Draytonian word. 

If the reader will take up Bacon's "Apology in certain 
imputations concerning the late Earl of Essex" and the 
"History of Henry the Seventh," he will find the use 
by Bacon of the word "whereat," as follows: 

"She saw plainly whereat I leveled." 

—Vol. 3, p. 221. 

" Whereat she seemed again offended." 

-Vol. 3, p. 224. 

" Whereat I remember she took." 

—Vol. 3, p. 227. 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 359 

" Whereat there was great murmur." 

—Vol. 5, p. 22. 

" Whereat there was much wondering." 

—Vol. 5, p. 25. 

" Whereat Hippias was offended." 

—Vol. 6, p. 79. 

Thirdly. — There is another peculiarity of the two poems 
which deserves to be particularly pointed out and which 
has hitherto escaped the notice of commentators. I refer 
to the unusual number of similes indulged in by the com- 
poser. These may be separated into two groups desig- 
nated by the words "as" and "like." In the Venus and 
Adonis there are fifty-nine similes, and in the Rape of 
Lucrece there are eighty-two, making in these two poems 
one hundred and forty-one in all. This large number of 
similes in the Venus and Adonis I set out at length, as 
follows : 

" As coals of glowing fire. As an empty eagle. As on 
a prey. As the spring. As in disdain. As from a fur- 
nace. As they were mad. As a dying coal. As apt as 
new-fallen snow. As the wind is hushed. As the wolf 
doth grin. As the berry. As the bright sun. As the 
fleet-foot roe. As poor birds. As those poor birds. As 
air and water. As if another chase. As burning fevers. 
As mountain snow. As caterpillars do. As one that 
unawares. As night wanderers often are. As one full of 
despair. As one with treasure laden. As falcon to the 
lure. As the snail. As when the wind. As dry com- 
bustious matter. Like a bold-faced suitor. Like a dive 
dapper. Like a fairy. Like a nymph. Like sturdy 
trees. Like misty vapors. Like a man. Like a band. 
Like heaven's thunder. Like fire. Like feathered wings. 
Like a melancholy malcontent. Like a falling plume. 



360 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Like a lowly lover. Chorus-like. Like two silver doves. 
Like a jade. Like a red morn. Like the deadly bullet. 
Like the fair sun. Like the moon in water. Glutton-like. 
Like a wild bird. Like the froward infant. Like a pale- 
faced coward. Like lawn being spread. Like to a mortal 
butcher. Like glowworms. Like an earthquake. Like 
thyself, all stained. Like a labyrinth. Like the wanton 
mermaid's song. Like sunshine after rain. Like a 
glutton dies. Like shrill-tongued tapsters. Like a milch 
doe. Like one that spies an adder. Like soldiers when. 
Like milk and blood. Like the proceedings. Like sluices. 
Like a stormy day. Like many clouds. Like pearls in 
glass. Like stars ashamed of day. Like a king per- 
plexed. Like two thieves. Like a vapor." 

In the Rape of Lucrece, the similes are as follows: 
"As bright as heaven's beauties. As is the morning's 
silver-melting dew. As one of which. As from this cold 
flint. As in revenge. As roses. As lawn. As corn o'er 
grown. As servants. As minutes fill up hours. As their 
captain. As those bars. As if the heavens. As the fair 
and fiery pointed sun. As if between them. As the grim 
lion. As one in dead of night. As fowl hears falcon's 
bells. As a thought unacted. As the full-fed hound. 
As palmers chat. As smoke from Mtna,. As from a 
mountain spring. As a child. As the dark earth. As 
frets upon an instrument. As the poor frighted deer. 
As winter meads. As the earth. As marble. As in a 
rough-grown grove. As lagging fowls. As heaven. As 
if some mermaid. As subtle Sinon. As if with grief. 
As Priam him did cherish. As through an arch. As from 
a dream. As silly jeering idiots. Coward-like. Like a 
virtuous deed. Like little frosts. Like a virtuous monu- 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 361 

ment. Like an April daisy. Like marigolds. Like golden 
threads. Like ivory globes. Like a foul usurper. Like 
straggling slaves. Like a new-killed bird. Like a trumpet. 
Like a falcon towering. Like a white hind. Like deceit. 
Like whirlwinds. Like a troubled ocean. Like Gods. 
Like a jade. Like to a bankrupt beggar. Like a thievish 
dog. Like a wearied lamb. Like water that. Drone- 
like. Like still-pining Tantalus. Like the snow-white 
swan. Like sluices. Like an unpracticed swimmer. Like 
a gentle flood. Like a melting eye. Like the dewy night. 
Like ivory conduits. Like a goodly champaign plain. 
Like a press of people. Like dying coals. Like bright 
things stained. Like a heavy-hanging bell. Like a con- 
stant and confirmed devil. Like wildfire. Like rainbows 
in the sky. Like old acquaintance. Like a late-sacked 
island." 

A partial examination of the works of Bacon shows 
that he abounds in similes. I will give the reader a few 
examples of them, premising that many others can be 
found in his writings. 

"As an hireling. As the sticks of a faggot. As the 
lawyers speak. As old wives' fables. As young men. 
As a courtesan. As with servants. As the forbidden 
fruit. As were Ceres, Bacchus. As a pasquil or satire. 
As vain princes. As the chaff. As a watch by night. 
As with a tide. As the grass. As chariots swift. As a 
tale told. As flames of fire. As ships. As water. As 
the shrines. As the serpent of Moses. As the statue of 
Polyphemus. As a nursery garden. As the ark of Noah. 
As the waters. As the flight of birds. As the swarming 
of bees. As a Tartar's bow. As a flight of birds. As 
from a rock. As with a strong tide. As an heaven of 



362 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

stars. As Queen Mary said of Calais. As a year with 
two harvests. As one awaked. As great engines. As a 
phoenix. As Atalanta's balls. As Africanus was. As a 
vanity and ventosity. As a plant. As pyramids. As 
the greyhound. As the hare. As Periander. As the 
priest. As Julius Caesar did. As flowers of Florence. 
Like the images of Cassius and Brutus. Like fruitful 
showers. Like the benefits of heaven. Like an ill mower. 
Like the fruitful tree. Like noble gold. Like waters 
after a tempest. Like branches of a tree. Like the pulling 
out of an aching tooth. Like a piece of stuff. Like a 
child following a bird. Like the fish Remora. Like a 
bell-ringer. Like the miller of Granchester. Like an old 
christening. Like another iEneas. Like a pedant. Like 
thunder afar off. Like a churchman. Like a hawk. 
Like a perspective glass. Like Penelope's web. Like an 
alphabet. Like the humor of Tiberius. Like the frets on 
the roof of houses. Like a lark. Like waters to physi- 
cians. Like a helmet. Like a good Protestant. Like a 
broker's shop. Like Hercules' column. like a foolish 
bold mountebank." 

If I should say that similes occur often in the works of 
Drayton and Dekker, as also in the works of other poets 
of that era, and that they were even found in abundance, 
I should have to say that in Bacon's works they occur in 
superabundance. 

There is, however, one play, designated as a doubtful 
Shakespeare play, called "King Edward the Third," a 
play which will be hereafter referred to, in which the same 
profusion of similes abounds which is so noticeable in 
Bacon's works. To save the reader the trouble of search- 
ing for them, I quote them from the play as follows : 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 363 

"As at the coronation of a king. As an abstract or a 
brief. As a May blossom. As a throne. As plenteous 
as the sun. As on the fragrant rose. As a sail. As a 
lion. As a kneeling vassal. As the vantage of the wind. 
As when the empty eagle flies. As on an anvil. As a 
blushing maid. As a shade. As a mournful knell. As 
black as powder. As when a whirlwind. As things long 
lost. As a bear. Like to fruitful showers. Like a con- 
queror. Like the lazy drone. Like the April sun. Like a 
country swain. Like a cloak. Like inconstant clouds. 
Like her oriental red. Like to a flattering glass. Like a 
glass. Like a fading taper. Like the sun. Like an 
humble shadow. Like as the wind. Like to a meadow. 
Like sweetest harmony. Like fiery dragons. Like un- 
natural sons. Raven-like. Like an oven. like a totter- 
ing wall. Like a skittish and untamed colt. Like a 
thirsty tiger. Like stiff-grown oaks. Like Perseus' shield. 
Like a sapless tree. Like emmets on a bank. Lion-like. 
Haggard-like. Like the continual laboring woodman's axe. 
Like a silver quarry. Like a half moon. like a soldier. 
Like a ring. Like a slender point. Like a Roman peer." 

The reader will pardon the digression here that he may 
first consider the style of the writer of Edward the Third 
by reference to one quotation, which is only one of many 
philosophical passages in the play; and secondly, that he 
may obtain a clue to the authorship by the setting out of 
another quotation from the play paralleled by a few 
sentences from Bacon's Essay on Death. 

In Act 2, Scene 2, Warwick, addressing his daughter, 
says: 

"An honorable grave is more esteem' d 
Than the polluted closet of a king: 



364 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The greater man, the greater is the thing, 
Be it good or bad, that he shall undertake: 
An unreputed mote, flying in the sun, 
Presents a greater substance than it is; 
The freshest summer's day doth sooner taint 
The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss: 
Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe. 
That sin doth ten times aggravate itself 
That is committed in a holy place : 
An evil deed, done by authority, 
Is sin and subornation: Deck an ape 
In tissue, and the beauty of the robe 
Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast. 
A spacious field of reason could I urge 
Between his glory, daughter, and thy shame. 
That poison shows worst in a golden cup; 
Dark night seems darker by the lightning flash; 
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds; 
And every glory that inclines to sin, 
The shame is trebled by the opposite." 

If the reader will peruse the play, he will discover that 
the author devotes a great part of the play to such philo- 
sophical utterances in verse as are found in the Shake- 
speare plays and the two poems. 

The other quotation is taken from the fourth scene of 
the fourth act, and the first impression of the reader will 
be that it was either copied from or originated by the 
author of Bacon's Essay on Death. 

AUDLEY SAYS: 

" To die is as common as to live ; 
The one in choice, the other holds in chase, 
For from the instant we begin to live, 
We do pursue and hunt the time to die. 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 365 

First bud we, then we blow, and after seed, 

Then presently we fall, and as a shade 

Follows the body, so we follow death. 

If then, we hunt for death, why do we fear it? 

Or, if we fear it, why do we follow it? 

If we do fear, with fear we do but aid 

The thing we fear to seize on us the sooner. 

If we fear not, then no resolv'd proffer 

Can overthrow the limit of our fate; 

For whether ripe or rotten, drop we shall 

As we do draw the lottery of our doom." 

bacon says: 

"It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little 
infant, perhaps the one is as painful as the other. He 
that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded 
in hot blood, who for the time scarce feels the hurt: And 
therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is 
good, doth avert the dolor of death. I have often thought 
upon death, and I find it the least of all evils. All that is 
past is as a dream; and he that hopes or depends upon 
time coming, dreams waking. So much of our life as we 
have discovered is already dead; and all those hours 
which we share, even from the breasts of our mother imtil 
we return to our grandmother, the earth, are part of our 
dying days; whereof even this is one, and those that 
succeed are of the same nature, for we die daily; and as 
others have given place to us, so we must in the end give 
way to others." 

There are resemblances also between the play and the 
poems, as, for instance, in Act 4, Scene 4, the Herald says : 
"Seeing thy body's living date expired," while in Lucrece, 
line 25, the poet says, " An expired date, canceled ere well 



366 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

begun." In Act 3, Scone 3, Edward says, "Against the 
kind embracement of thy friends"; while in Venus and 
Adonis, line 312, the poet says, " Beating his kind einbrace- 
ment with her heels." In Act 3, Scene 1, the Mariner says, 

"As when the empty eagle flies, 
To satisfy his hungry griping maw." 

While in Venus and Adonis, line 55, the poet says, 
" Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast." 

That I am not singular in calling the reader's attention 
to this remarkable play of Edward the Third, I insert the 
following from the first volume, page 125, of Halliwell- 
Phillip's "Outlines," showing that he also had been so 
struck by the style and phraseology of that play as to give 
it the particular notice embodied in the following extract: 

"In an anonymous and popular drama entitled 'The 
Reign of King Edward the Third' produced in or before 
the year 1595, there are occasional passages which, by most 
judgments, will be accepted as having been written either 
by Shakespeare or by an exceedingly dexterous and suc- 
cessful imitator of one of his then favorite styles of com- 
position. For who but one or the other could have en- 
dowed a kind and gentle lady with the ability of replying 
to the impertinent addresses of a foolish sovereign in 
words such as these: 

' As easy may my intellectual soul 
Be lent away and yet my body live, 
As lend my body, palace to my soul, 
Away from her, and yet retain my soul. 
My body is her bower, her court, her abbey, 
And she an angel, pure, divine, unspotted; 
If I should lend her house, my lord, to thee, 
I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me."' 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 367 

The reader will next find in the two poems a general 
style and manner of versification very different from that 
which characterizes the poetry of Drayton and Dekker. 
Drayton makes his principal personage, whether hero or 
heroine, the narrator, generally summoning them from 
the mansions of the dead to recite their woes, their suffer- 
ings or their achievements, and the poetry is of the narra- 
tive or descriptive style. This characteristic of Drayton 
was noted by Schlegel when he wrote his eulogy upon 
the play of Sir John Oldcastle, in the mistaken belief that 
he was eulogizing Shakespeare. Dekker also indulged in 
the descriptive style, as will manifestly appear to the 
reader who will peruse his "Canaan's Calamity" (which 
follows the Venus and Adonis versification), or any one 
of his lengthy poems. 

On the other hand, the poet of the Venus and Adonis 
and the Rape of Lucrece is distinguished by his philo- 
sophical utterances. Hazlitt's criticism embodies the 
truth when he says: "The two poems appear to us like a 
couple of ice houses. They are about as hard, as glitter- 
ing and as cold. The author seems all the time to be 
thinking of his verses and not of his subject — not of what 
his characters would feel, but of what they shall say. The 
whole is labored up-hill work. The poet is perpetually 
singling out the difficulties of the art to make an exhibi- 
tion of his skill in wrestling with them. A beautiful 
thought is sure to be lost in an endless commentary upon 
it." Venus philosophizes about jealousy, nature, love, 
death, the world, and beauty. 

In the Rape of Lucrece, Tarquin, after rising from his 
couch and lighting his torch, devotes ten full long stanzas 
of the poem to premeditation upon the dangers of his 



368 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

enterprise; eight more to solicitation; while Lucrece uses 
ten more stanzas in reply. After the accomplishment of 
his purpose, fifteen more stanzas are consumed by Lucrece 
in a digressive address to Night, eight more similarly to 
Opportunity, fourteen more to Time as the master of 
opportunity, eight more she spends in caviling and apos- 
trophizing Day, four in addressing the birds of the morn- 
ing, and especially Philomel, and then she uses five more 
stanzas in the making of her will. As Rolfe says, in his 
introduction to the poems, "In Lucrece, the action is 
delayed, and delayed that every minute particular may be 
described, every minor incident recorded. In the new- 
ness of her suffering and shame, Lucrece finds time for an 
elaborate tirade appropriate to the theme 'Night,' another 
to that of 'Time,' another to that of ' Opportunity.' Each 
topic is exhausted. Then studiously a new incident is 
introduced, and its significance for the emotions is drained 
to the last drop in a new tirade." There is nothing in all 
this to remind one of anything similar either in Drayton or 
Dekker, nor in any other writer of the time except Bacon. 
It reminds us of Bacon's Essay upon Death, upon Love, 
upon Beauty, upon the Vicissitude and Mutations of Time 
and upon Nature. It recalls also his remarks in his letter 
of advice to Essex upon Opportunity, Vol. 5, p. 247. " I 
will shoot my fool's bolt," he says, "since you will have 
it so. The Earl of Ormond to be encouraged and com- 
forted. Above all things, the garrison to be instantly 
provided for. For opportunity maketh a thief." 

Since writing the above, I have been favored with a 
perusal of "The Mystery of William Shakespeare," by 
Webb, in which the author calls attention to another 
peculiarity of the writer of the poems; namely, that he 



WHITHER THE PATHWAY OF THE POEMS LEADS. 369 

was versed in the law; and he affirms that if anything is 
certain in regard to the poems, it is certain that the author 
was a lawyer. Now, neither Drayton nor Dekker were 
lawyers. "The poems," he says, "sparkle with a frosty 
brilliance which led Mr. Hazlitt to compare them with 
palaces of ice. This frosty brilliance, according to Pro- 
fessor Dowden, is the light with which the ethical writings 
of Bacon gleam, and which plays are the worldly maxims 
which constitute his philosophy of life." 

Finally, the accomplished Shakespearean scholar ob- 
serves that "the poems abound with endless exercises and 
variations on such themes as Beauty, Lust, and Death; as 
Night, Opportunity, and Time. In reality they are essays 
of the philosopher in verse; and even Love is treated in 
the poems exactly as he treats it in the Essays. In the 
poems, the Queen of Love proposes to sell herself to the 
young Adonis. The consideration is to be 'a thousand 
kisses,' the number to be doubled in default of immediate 
payment; the deed is to be executed without delay; and 
the purchaser is to set his sign-manual on her wax-red 
lips. The Roman matron, in her agony of shame, makes 
the abridgment of a will in which she bequeaths her reso- 
lution to her husband, her honor to the knife, her shame 
to Tarquin, and her fame to those who still believed in 
her purity; and Collatinus is to oversee the will." 

There is one other fact to be considered which militates 
against the Drayton theory. The poem of Venus and 
Adonis is singularly free from Warwickshireisms, to use a 
word of Morgan. What he says at page 11 of his "Study 
in the Warwickshire Dialect" is unanswerable. "If the 
Venus and Adonis was written in Warwickshire by a 
Warwickshire lad who had never been out of it, it ought to 



370 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

contain a little Warwickshire word to betray the precincts 
of its writer and its conception. Richard Grant White 
loved to imagine young Shakespeare, like young Chatter- 
ton and many another young poet, coming up to London 
with his first poem in his pocket. 'In any case, we may 
be sure that the poem,' he says, 'was written some years 
before it was printed; and it may have been brought by 
the young poet from Stratford in manuscript, and read by 
a select circle, according to the custom of the time, before 
it was published.' If William Shakespeare wrote the poem 
at all, it would seem as if Mr. White's proposition is beyond 
question, so far as mere dates go. But if the result of a 
glossary of the Warwickshire dialect, as paralleled with 
the poem, is to discover no Warwickshire in a poem written 
by a Warwickshire man in Warwickshire, or soon after 
he left it to go elsewhere, it would look extremely like 
corroboration of the evidence of the dates by that of the 
dialect." 

I have followed the path of the two poems, and that 
path points Bacon ward. The facts elicited by my exami- 
nation are before the reader and he can draw his own 
conclusion from those facts. Bearing in mind that William 
Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon is eliminated from consider- 
ation because of his illiteracy, he will understand that the 
question of the authorship of the poems and plays is to 
be determined only by the weight, not of direct, but of 
circumstantial evidence. Consequently, his opinion as to 
the authorship of the poems may differ from and be better 
than mine, especially if he will carefully study the two 
poems. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA AND THE TAMING OF THE SHREW 
EXAMINED. 

" Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head no?/-." 

— Merry Wives of Windsor, ii, 1. 

It was not my design in writing this book to prepare 
and give to the reader an examination and analysis of all 
the Shakespeare plays, because the examination is only 
for the purpose of trying to identify, if possible, some one 
or more of the writers of the plays. 

I have therefore limited the consideration of the plays 
to a part only, including therein some of those which 
Meres in his "Palladis Tamia" referred to and which were 
composed before 1598. The reader of course will under- 
stand that I am not seeking to extol the beauties or to 
criticise the blemishes, if any, of the plays examined. In 
the consideration of the question of the authorship of the 
plays specified in this and the succeeding chapters, I shall 
endeavor to bring the facts before the reader, so that he 
and I can draw our own conclusions and opinions from 
the facts. In order not to be tedious, I have confined 
my examination to a consideration of the style of a few of 
the participants in their composition. 

I will begin with the two plays entitled Troilus and 
Cressida and the Taming of the Shrew. 

The first fact to which I will call the reader's attention, 
as attested by reliable evidence, is that the play of Troilus 
and Cressida was originally written by Thomas Dekker 
and Henrv Chettle. 



372 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

My authority for this statement of fact is the Diary of 
Philip Henslowe, which, as heretofore shown, is recog- 
nized as a reliable authority by all the commentators. 
It is not only a reliable authority, but it is the very best 
authority on the subject of the original composition of 
some of the so-called Shakespeare plays. Henslowe's 
Diary is entitled to a high degree of credit, because it was 
kept by a disinterested man, who cared nothing for any 
poet or dramatist except in so far as he could buy his 
plays for the smallest amount of money; and his Diary, 
outside of his expense account and common transactions, 
is in effect a statement of the names of the plays, either 
by the actual name given to the play, badly spelled, or 
an identifying reference to the play by the use of the name 
of some one of the chief characters therein, together with 
the amount paid for the play, or book as it was then called, 
and very often the names of the several writers who com- 
posed the play. As has already been stated in Chapter 
III, the Henslowe Diary shows thai Thomas Dekker and 
Henry Chettle, in the spring of the year 1599, wrote the 
play of Troilus and Cressida. Presumptively, therefore, 
this play was written by Dekker and Chettle, unless it 
can be shown by proof which w r oulcl overcome that pre- 
sumption that Henslowe's Diary was, as to that point, 
incorrect; or that there were two plays on that subject 
with the same name ; or that some one took the play after 
Dekker and Chettle had written it and added to or sub- 
tracted from the original composition. Collier, who 
edited and indexed the Diary, appends this note below 
Henslowe's entry: "Malone quotes this remarkable entry 
(showing that Dekker and Chettle were engaged in April, 
1599, on a play with the name and on the subject adopted 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA : TAMING OF THE SHREW. 373 

by our great dramatist) in Shaksper by Boswell, 3, 331. 
Henslowe gets a little nearer the proper spelling of the 
title in a subsequent memorandum." It is a fact not to 
be disputed that William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon 
never claimed that he was the author of this play. 

In the Stationers' Register is an entry in the follow ing 
terms : 

" 7 Feb. 1602-3, Mr Roberts the booke of Troilus and 
Cresseda, as yt is acted by my Lo Chamberlens men." 

Here there is no allusion to the name of Shaksper or 
Shakespeare. But in 1609, the name of "William Shake- 
speare" is attached to an edition of Troilus and Cressida. 
Such a publication might be of some avail to overcome 
the presumption that Dekker and Chettle wrote the play, 
were it not for two facts: First, that the attaching of that 
name to plays which William Shaksper did not write 
renders such an ascription of no value. As Morgan in his 
" Myth, ' ' speaking of the plays ascribed to Shaksper, says, 
"It is certainly a fact that none of these from Hamlet to 
Fair Em, from Lucrece to the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 
did William Shaksper ever either deny or claim as progeny 
of his. He fathered them all as they came and no ques- 
tions asked; and had Ireland been at hand with his Vor- 
tigern, it might have gone in with the rest." His name 
was attached, as we have seen, to the play of Sir John 
Oldcastle, in 1600, but the discovery of Henslowe's Diary 
put an end to that falsehood, and there is no valid reason 
why the statements in the Diary as to the authorship of 
Troilus and Cressida should not also be accepted for truth. 

The second fact is that the careful reader of the play 
will find therein the style of two different persons. Collier, 
a Shakespeare worshiper, says, in his introduction to the 



374 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

plays, that " Everybody must be struck with the remark- 
able inequality of some parts of Shakespeare's Troilus and 
Cressida, especially toward the conclusion; they could 
hardly have been written by the pen which produced the 
magnificent speeches of Ulysses and the other earlier 
portions." Verplanck, one of the most reliable editors, 
says, as to this play, "The Shakespearean critics have 
found ample room for theory. I have already noticed the 
supposition of Dryden and of Sir Walter Scott that the 
play was left imperfect, or hurried to a conclusion with 
little care after parts had been as carefully elaborated. 
Another set of English commentators, from Steevens to 
Seymour, have satisfied themselves that Shakespeare's 
genius and taste had been expended in improving the work 
of an inferior author, whose poorer groundwork still 
appeared through his more precious decorations. This, 
Steevens supposes, might be the Troilus and Cressida on 
which Dekker and Chettle were employed in 1599, as we 
learn from Henslowe's Diary." 

These opinions and guesses made by the commentators, 
great and small, support the title of Dekker and Chettle 
to the authorship of Troilus and Cressida. I will ask the 
reader, whether a believer or unbeliever in Shaksper's 
ability to write a play, to read it carefully, and then to 
ask himself the question, "Does it appear on its face to 
be the work of one man solely?" and he will be forced to 
answer that two men, at the least, composed it. 

I have already shown and will further show that Dekker 
and Chettle had not only the ability to write the play, but 
also that all the indicia are corroborative of their original 
joint authorship. Groshart's terse poetical description 
of Dekker's gifts as a dramatic poet is directly in point: 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA : TAMING OF THE SHREW. 375 

" In far back Jacobean days, the name 
Of Dekker seen on any title page 
Drew magnet-like, men's eyes; he was the rage. 
He had that force in him which did tame 
Even rare Ben; or call it mother wit 
Or genius, his lightest works still live." 

The following from Pearson's "Memoir" well describes 
him: "His stores of wisdom and his wealth of imagina- 
tion were for forty years lavished on the world, but with 
little or no reward to himself. He wrote continually under 
the stress of want and was often compelled to seek friendly 
aid to release him from the walls of a debtor's prison. A 
wretched hand-to-mouth existence, a career made sordid 
by the constant necessity of writing for daily bread, seems 
to have been his lot from first to last, relieved, perhaps, 
by occasional glimpses of happiness and repose such as 
he must have enjoyed when composing some of the choicest 
of the series of dramas which constitute his chief title to 
fame." 

And as for Henry Chettle, the Diary of Henslowe shows 
that Chettle was esteemed so competent as a play writer, 
and the thrifty and enterprising manager, Henslowe, was 
so appreciative of his ability "to tickle the ears" of an 
English audience, that he secured his services by a bond 
conditioned that he would write plays exclusively for the 
Earl of Nottingham's players. He was also employed to 
write plays for the Court. He was a printer, a stationer, 
and so much of a ready writer that he was a participant 
in the composition of over forty plays, among which may 
be enumerated Patient Grissel, The Rising of Cardinal 
Wolsey, in two parts, The Danish Tragedy, The Death of 
Robert Earl of Huntington, The Step-mother's Tragedy, 



376 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Robert the Second, Damon and Pythias, King Sebastian 
of Portugal, Like Quits Like, and Vayvode. 

Passing from the proof of the competency of the two 
dramatists, let us take up the discriminating marks and 
consider first the oaths, exclamations, identical expres- 
sions, and ejaculations: 

The ejaculations are as follows: 

" And fell so roundly. Beshrew your heart. By God's 
lid. By Venus' hand. Go hang yourself. God-a-mercy. 
Ha, ha, ha. How rank soever. 0, admirable. Regard 
him. Serve your turn. This is kindly done. To say the 
truth. Welcome, welcome." 

Next let us consider the big words in Troilus and 
Cressida; such as Jonson, in his Poetaster, caused Dekker 
to be indicted for using. They are: "Attributive, cir- 
cumvention, commixtion, conflux, consanguinity, co- 
rivaled, corresponsive, deracinate, dividable, embrasures, 
expressure, fixture, fraughtage, infectiously, insisture, 
mappery, medicinable, monstrosity, oppugnancy, primo- 
genitive, propension, propugnation, protractive, rejoindure, 
taciturnity, transportance, uncomprehensive, unrespective, 
waftage." 

Compare these with the following big words in Patient 
Grissel, a play which was mainly written by Dekker and 
Chettle, and a play in which Francis Bacon had no part: 
"Accoutrements, capricious, collocution, condolement, 
conglutinate, delinquishment, dignifying, diogenical, dis- 
consolation, expatiate, fastidious, fustian, gallimaufry, 
gratulate, incongruent, magnitude, misprize, misprision, 
oblivionize, outlandish, penurious, solitariness, synthesis." 

Consider also the long words heretofore set out in 
Chapter XXVI, and gathered from Dekker' s plays. 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA : TAMING OF THE SHREW. 377 

Words used in Troilus and Cressida and once only in 
the play, and also used by Dekker, are as follows: 

-Blackamoor, brainless, inveigled, lifter, mealy, plaguy, 
unclasp, waftage, wenching." 

When Troilus says " Do not give advantage to stubborn 
critics," Dekker, in Knights Conjuring, says, "Take heed 
of critics " When Pandarus says, "and I have a rheum 
in mine eyes too," Dekker, in 2 H. W., A. 2, S. 1 says, 
«I am troubled with a whoreson salt rheum. Neither 
Bacon or Drayton, nor indeed any dramatic poet of the 
time, save the creator of Simon Eyre and Orlando Fnsco- 
baldo, could have written in Troilus and Cressida the 

following: . . 

"Now the rotten diseases of the south, the guts-gripmg, 
ruptures, catarrhs, loads o' gravel i' the back, lethargies, 
cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs, 
bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime kilns i the 
palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of 
the tetter, take and take again such preposterous dis- 
coveries," or the following, "thou damnable box of envy 
you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable 
cur thou idle immaterial skein of sleyd silk, thou 

green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal s 

^Thesfabusive phrases are all distinctly Dekkerian. 
Nevertheless, there are marks of Bacon in this play 
plainly to be discovered, as if he had taken the work of 
another or others and incorporated some of his philosophi- 
cal views and reflections therein. For instance in his 
" Advancement of Learning, " Vol. 1, Edition of 1803, page 
139, referring to Aristotle, he says, "And as he elegantly 
expoundeth the ancient fable of Atlas that stood fixed and 



378 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

bore up the heaven from falling, to be meant of the poles 
or axle trees of heaven, whereupon the conversion is 
accomplished, so assuredly men have a desire to have an 
Atlas or axle tree within to keep them from fluctuation." 
While Ulysses, in Act 1, Scene 3, says: 

" And such again as venerable Nestor, hatched in silver 
Should with a bond of air (strong as the axle tree 
On which heaven rides) knit all the Greekish ears 
To his experienced tongue." 

And again in Act 2, Scene 2, Hector says, "So madly 
hot that no discourse of reason"; while Bacon, in Vol. 
1, p. 26, says, "Martin Luther, conducted no doubt by 
an higher providence but in discourse of reason." It will 
be noticed by the reader that the same expression occurs 
in Hamlet, A. 1, S. 2, L. 150. 

But it is especially in the frequency of the similes in 
the play that the reader will find Bacon's handiwork. 
I will set them out for the reader's benefit: 

"As true as steel; as plantage to the moon; as sun to 
day; as turtle to her mate; as iron to adamant; as earth 
to the center; as true as Troilus; as false as air; as water; 
as wind; as sandy earth; as fox to lamb; as wolf to heifer 
calf; as stepdame to her son; as false as Cressid; as a 
prophet; -as knots; as bending angels; as be stars in 
heaven ; as the wind ; as the axle tree ; as banks of Lybia ; 
as truth's simplicity; as tediously as hell; like Perseus' 
horse; like the commandment; like a strutting player; 
like a chime a-mending; like as Vulcan; like a mint; like 
merchants; like chidden Mercury; like a star disorbed; 
like one besotted; like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish; 
like an engine not portable; like a bourne, a pale, a shore; 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA : TAMING OF THE SHREW. 379 

like a strange soul; like vassalage; like unbridled children; 
like a fountain stirred ; like a puling cuckold ; like a lecher ; 
like a book of sport; like a peacock; like an hostess; like 
a leather jerkin; like butterflies; like an arch; like a gate 
of steel; like a rusty nail; like an entered tide; like a 
gallant horse; like a fashionable host; like the gods; like 
a dew drop; like an ague; unlike young men." 

I can not give adhesion to the view expressed by Webb 
and other gifted writers that Bacon wrote this play. It 
was, in my opinion, based upon the foregoing facts, origin- 
ally the production of Dekker and Chettle, added to and 
philosophically dressed by Francis Bacon. How he got 
the play, or from whom or from what source he obtained 
it, is not very essential except in corroboration of the 
theory that he made additions to it. The natural pre- 
sumption is that the original authors, after being paid 
for it, had no further care for nor proprietorship in it; 
that it passed into the possession and ownership of William 
Shaksper, and as such owner he got credit for the original 
authorship of Dekker and Chettle as well as Bacon's 
amendments and additions. 

The Taming of the Shrew. 

When the reader's attention is drawn to the question 
of the origin of the play of The Taming of the Shrew, he 
will find by an examination of Henslowe's Diary, at page 
36, the following entry: 

" 11 of June, 1594. Rd at the Tamvnge of a Shrowe 
IX s." 

The editor of the Diary, Collier, in a note adds the 
following: "No doubt the old Taming of a Shrew, 
printed in 1594, and recently reprinted by the Shake- 



380 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

speare Society under the care of Mr. Amyot, from the sole 
existing copy in the library of the Duke of Devonshire." 

It is also to be noted that this performance of June 
eleventh was the only performance of that particular play 
in Henslowe's theatre, which fact, added to the other fact 
of the mention of the paltry sum of nine shillings by way 
of receipts, shows that the play of the Taming of a Shrew, 
as printed in 1594, did not please the theatre-goers. 

A perusal of the play as printed by the Shakespeare 
Society also shows that it was a very hastily written 
production. 

In the Taming of the Shrew, printed in the Folio of 1623, 
the characters of the play are changed, and the place is 
also changed from Athens to Padua. But the Induc- 
tion is retained, amplified and beautified, and the play 
itself is very entertaining and mirth-provoking. 

A few short extracts from the old play will give the 
reader an insight into the method of the revision. In the 
play of 1594 the Induction opens thus: 

" Enter a Tapster, beating out of doors She, drunken. 

Tap. You whoreson drunken slave, you had best be gone 
And empty your drunken paunch somewhere else, 
For in this house thou shalt not rest to-night. 

Site. Tilly vally by crise, Tapster I'll fese you anon, 
I do drink of my own instigation. 
Here I'll be a while. Why, Tapster, I say, 
Till's a fresh cushen here, 
Heigho, here's good warm lying." 

Let him also compare the following with the revision 
of it in Act 2, Scene 1. 

" Alf. Ha, Kate, come hither, wench, and list to me. 
Use this gentleman friendly as thou canst. 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA: TAMING OF THE SHREW. 381 

Fer. Twenty good morrows to my lovely Kate. 
Kate. You jest, I am sure; is she yours already? 
Fer. I tell thee Kate. I know thou lov'st me well. 
Kate. The devil you do. Who told you so? 
Fer. My mind, sweet Kate, doth say I am the man, 

Must wed and bed and marry bonny Kate. 
Kate. Was ever seen so gross an ass as this? 
Fer Ay, to stand so long and never get a kiss. 
Kate. Hands off I say, and get you from this place ^ 

Or I will set my ten commandments in your face. 

Alf. abbreviated from Alfonso is the Baptista of the 
revised play. Fer. standing for Ferando is altered to 
Petruchio, and the Christian names of the other two 
daughters are changed. The reader who will take the 
trouble to make the comparison which I suggest, will 
agree with me that the reviser of the play greatly im- 
proved and beautified it, and especially the Induction. 
He certainly was a skillful word-painter. 

Henslowe's Diary throws light on the composition and 
authorship of the play, as will appear by the following 
entries: At page 224, "Lent unto Thomas Downton and 
Edward Jeube, to geve unto Thomas Dickers, in earneste 
of a comody called a medyson for a curste wiffe 19 July 
1602, forty shillinges." At page 225, " Lent unto Thomas 
Downton, the 31 of July 1602, to paye unto Thomas 
Dickers, in pte of payment of his comodey called a medyson 
for a curste wiffe the some of forty shillings." 

Collier appends the following note to this entry: "This 
'medicine for a curst wife' was probably some new version 
of the Taming of a Shrew which preceded Shakespeare's 
comedy, and which has been reprinted by the Shakespeare 
Society from the unique copy of 1594 in the library of the 
Duke of Devonshire." 



382 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

At page 237, "Layd out more for the company, in pte 
of paymente for a booke called 'Medsen for a curste wife/ 
the some of — unto Thomas Deckers, ten shillings." 

At page 238, " Pd at the apoyntment of the Company, 
the 1 of Septmbr, in pte of paymente for a comodey 
called ' a medysen for a curste wiffe' to Thomas Deckers 
some of thirty shillings." 

Collier's note appended to this entry is as follows: 
"This sum of 30s. with the £4 in the preceding entry, 
£2 on 31st of July and 10s. which Dekker received on the 
27th August, made up the sum total of £8 for the play 
of ' A Medicine for a curst wife.' " On the 27th of Septem- 
ber, Dekker was paid 10s. over and above his price for the 
"Medicine for a curst wife," owing perhaps to its great 
success when acted. 

The entry to which Collier refers appears on page 240 of 
the Diary and reads thus : " Pd unto Thomas Deckers, the 
27 of Septmbr 1602 over and above his price of his boocke 
called a Medysen for a curste wiffe some of ten shillings." 

It appears therefore that Dekker not only received 
from the hard-fisted Henslowe a good price for his clever 
comedy, but he opened his purse-strings to the amount of 
ten shillings more as a gift to Dekker in consequence of 
the great success of the play. 

Is Collier right in his opinion that this was a version of 
the old Taming of a Shrew, and am I right in asking the 
reader to believe with me that this costly comedy of 
Dekker' s was the comedy which appeared in the Folio of 
1623 as a Shakespeare play, revised and amended, how- 
ever, by another hand? 

I support my belief that Dekker's "Medicine for a 
curst wife" is the "Taming of the Shrew," as found with 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA ! TAMING OF THE SHREW. 383 

amendments and additions in the Shakespeare plays, 
for the following reasons: 

The ejaculations, familiar expressions and phrases are 
such as Dekker habitually used, and they are not found, 
at least to any extent, in the writings of other dramatists 
of that era. 

The ejaculations are as follows: "A vengeance on; 
aye, prithee, Fie, fie, Gramercies; God-a-mercy; 0, pardon 
me; 0, this woodcock ; Tush, tush." 

The phrases are as follows: " A meacock wretch; Belike 
(twice used); By this light; Get you hence (twice used); 
God give him joy; God send you joy; Here's no knavery; 
I am undone; I charge you in the Duke's name; imprimis 
(twice used); In brief (twice used); Lead apes in hell; 
Nay, I have ta'en you napping; Of his signs and tokens; 
Old worshipful; Old master; Pitchers have ears; Resolve 
me that; Take heed; 'Tis passing good; Where be these 
knaves." 

The words used only once in the plays and also used 
by Dekker are, " coney-catched, logger-headed, o'erreach, 
metaphysics, mother-wit." 

All these ejaculations, expressions, and words are 
found in Fortunatus, Satiro-mastix, The Shoemakers' 
Holiday, and the Honest Whore. 

A most remarkable phrase of identification is found in 
the first act and first scene. Dekker was fond of using 
Latin sentences, and he aired his Latin in his prose and 
poetry whenever he could get an opportunity. In his 
Belman's Night Walk he quoted the following from the 
Eunuch of Terence, " Redime te captumquam queas minimo," 
and so to make a rhyme, he puts into the mouth of Tranio, 
in the Shakespeare play, Act 1, Scene 1, the following: 



384 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"If love have touched you, nought remains but so, 
Redime te captum quam queas minimo." 

Dekker can also be traced in the Induction. " Paucas 
pallabris" was a favorite expression of his. See the 
Roaring Girl, Act 5, Scene 1. "Go by, says Jeronimo," 
he was fond of quoting. "I'll not budge an inch, boy" 
is repeated in the Honest Whore; and the expression, 
"But I would be loth" is also used by Dekker in Act 2, 
Scene 2, of Fortunatus. 

The style of the writer is the style of Dekker. Take 
for instance the first words of Grumio, in the hall in 
Petruchio's Country-house as set out in Scene 1 of Act 4 : 

"Gru. — Fie, fie, on all tired jades, on all mad masters, 
and all foul ways! Was ever man so beaten? was ever 
man so rayed? was ever man so weary? I am sent before 
to make a fire, and they are coming after to warm them. 
Now, were not I a little pot, and soon hot, my very lips 
might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the roof of my 
mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come to a fire 
to thaw me; but, I, with blowing the fire, shall warm 
myself, for, considering the weather, a taller man than I 
will take cold. Holla, hoa! Curtis!" 

There are in the play of Patient Grissel, written by 
Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton, several allusions to the 
taming of shrews. I cite one. 

In Act 5, Scene 2, Sir Onan, producing his wards, 
says to the Marquess ' 'I will learn your medicines to tame 
shrews." This play was printed in 1603, and the expres- 
sion is remarkable because Henslowe's Diary shows, as 
heretofore set out, that Dekker in the summer of 1602 
received money from Henslowe on account of the comedy 



TROILUS AND CRESSIDA : TAMING OF THE SHREW. 385 

he was writing, called by the illiterate manager " A medi- 
cine for a curst wife." 

While Dekker should have credit for the composition 
of the major part of the Taming of the Shrew, I can 
not help thinking that the man who wrote the Venus 
and Adonis amended the Induction to this play and 
smoothed the rough portions of it. Dekker was a 
hasty and careless writer, and every reader of his works 
will agree with me that he was always in need of a literary 
polisher. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

MEASURE FOR MEASURE, TITUS ANDRONICUS, AND PERICLES 

EXAMINED. 

"Opinion's but a fool." 

— Pericles, ii, 2. 

How can the literary public make some reparation to 
the poet and dramatist of Lincolnshire, the sturdy and 
amiable Thomas Heywood, who wrote or had "a main 
finger" in the writing of over two hundred and twenty 
plays, many of which were stolen from him without any 
recognition of his authorship by the printers and pub- 
lishers who flourished in those days? I know that the 
reader will be pleased if the author of " A Woman Killed 
by Kindness" can be truthfully connected with the com- 
position of part or all of any one or more of the Shake- 
speare plays. 

Henslowe's Diary shows, at page 230, the following 
entry : 

"Ld owt at the apoyntment of Thomas Hewode, in 
earnest of a play called Like quits Like unto Mr. Harey 
Chettell and thomas Hewode, the 14 of Janewary 1602 
some xxxx s." It is evident, therefore, that in 1602 
Heywood and Chettle wrote a play for Henslowe's Com- 
pany which Henslowe called "Like quits Like." 

In Act 5, Scene 1, of Measure for Measure, the play now 
under consideration, the following words are uttered by 
the Duke: 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE : ANDRONICUS : PERICLES. 387 

"The very mercy of the law cries out 
Most audibly even from his proper tongue, 
An Angelo for Claudio, death for death; 
Haste still pays haste and leisure answers leisure, 
Like doth quit like and measure still for measure." 

I am quite sure that the unprejudiced reader will agree 
with me that the play which' Henslowe's entry referred 
to was this very play of Measure for Measure, now wrongly 
accredited to Shaksper. It may have been changed or 
amended afterward, but presumptively it was the same 
play. When Collier, who edited Henslowe's Diary, came 
across this entry, he brushed it aside with his probabilities 
and possibilities by the following note appended to page 
230 of the Diary: "It is just possible that this may have 
been a play on the same story as Measure for Measure, 
near the end of which this line occurs: 'Like doth quit 
like, and measure still for measure.' The success of 
Measure for Measure at this date might have produced 
the rival play. As has often been the case, the title of 
the piece was clumsily filled in by Henslowe after he made 
the entry." 

But presumptively the entry, which is unquestionably 
a correct statement of the original authorship of the play 
of Measure for Measure, shows that Thomas Heywood and 
Henry Chettle wrote the play. 

Although it differs, as Verplanck says, and as all com- 
mentators admit, in a marked manner in diction, versifi- 
cation and still more in general spirit and tone of senti- 
ment from the other Shakespeare comedies, neither that 
fact nor the Henslowe entry are sufficient to put the 
Shaksper worshipers on inquiry. They do not care to 
doubt. Nothing can shake their idolatrous belief. 



388 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

If the reader, for illustration, will turn to Isabella's 
words in Act 2, Scene 2, he will see at once the difference 
in style: 

"Nothing but thunder. Merciful heaven! 
That rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt 
Splits't the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, 
Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man." 

The syllable is wanting in the middle, as the reader 
will notice. 

Let the reader also notice the date of this payment of 
earnest money to Hey wood and Chettle. It is January 
14, 1602, and it is certain from a memorandum made by 
the master of the revels that Measure for Measure was 
acted at Court in December, 1604. 

As to the competency of Heywood and Chettle to write 
a good play, the evidence is overwhelming. Charles 
Lamb calls Heywood the " prose Shakespeare, " and says 
of him, " His scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. 
Generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths of passion; 
sweetness, in a word, and gentleness, Christianism, and 
true hearty anglicism of feelings, shaping that Christian- 
ism, shine through his beautiful writings in a manner more 
conspicuous than in those of Shakespeare." 

And as to Chettle, Meres, in his "Palladis Tamia," 
published in 1598, mentions him as " one of the best for 
comedy." But the finest tribute to him was paid by 
Dekker after Chettle's death, in his Knights Conjuring. 
In describing the other world to which we enter after death, 
Dekker pictures a grove in the fields of Joy, standing by 
itself like an island, called the Grove of Bay Trees " to 
which resort none but the children of Phoebus (poets and 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE : ANDRONICUS : PERICLES. 389 

musicians). In one part of which grove, old Chaucer, 
revered for priority, blithe in cheer, buxom in speech and 
benign in his behavior, is circled round with all the makers 
of poems of his time. 

"In another company sat learned Watson, industrious 
Kyd, ingenious Aitchlow and (though he had been a player 
moulded out of their pens) yet because he had been their 
lover and a register to the muses, inimitable Bentley; 
these were likewise carousing to one another at the holy 
well, some of them singing pseans to Apollo, some of them 
hymns to the rest of the gods, whilst Marlowe, Greene, 
and Peele had got under the shade of a large vine, laughing 
to see Nash (that was newly come to their college) still 
haunted with the sharp and satirical spirit that followed 
him here on earth." Then after describing a bitter speech 
of Nash, delivered to the assembled poet ghosts, he adds — 
"He had no sooner spoken this, but in comes Chettle 
sweating and blowing by reason of his fatness, to welcome 
whom, because he was of old acquaintance, all rose up and 
fell presently on their knees to drink a health to all the 
lovers of Helicon." 

And here I must make a short digression. After a 
perusal of the "Shaksper not Shakespeare" of Edwards, 
and especially that part bearing on Shaksper's ignorance, a 
witty and very accomplished woman exclaimed, "If this 
be true, if Shaksper was an ignorant fellow, and if the 
spirits of the departed hold intercourse with each other 
in the next world, how amazed and crestfallen will the 
believers in Shaksper as Shakespeare appear when they 
meet him on the other side." That felicitous remark 
naturally furnishes the material for a supplemental Dek- 
ker's dream. 



390 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

If Dekker could return from the abodes of the dead, 
and indulge in a supplemental dream, the incident pictured 
to his imagination might have for its time one of the 
early years of the twentieth century and for its place the 
very same paradisaical grove in the field of Joy, so like 
an island, which was frequented by the poets and drama- 
tists mentioned by Dekker. The particular spot is a 
secluded one, set apart for the use and pleasure of the 
Shakespearean critics and commentators. A notable 
group is gathered there. Among them may be seen the 
spiritual form of Edmond Malone, the indefatigable, pre- 
cise, and learned searcher after facts as to Shakespeare. 
Near to him stands Richard Farmer, that doughty and 
terrible foe of those who claim that " the sweet swan of 
Avon" was an educated and accomplished scholar; while 
close by his side is the critical and studious Richard 
Grant White, who was endeavoring to convince Farmer 
that the gentle Shaksper was a thorough scholar, versed 
in all the learning of the ancients, familiar with the Greek, 
Latin, and modern languages, as well as a complete master 
of the Aristotelian and Baconian systems of philosophy. 
Just as he had finished his eloquent speech, up came 
Gulien C. Verplanck, the accomplished and fair-minded 
editor and Shakespearean critic, and suggested that, to 
put an end to controversy, it would be a comparatively 
easy matter to send a message to the planetary sphere 
which the great bard inhabited and solicit him to honor 
them with his presence and to permit them to gaze upon 
that face which rare Ben Jonson referred to in his address 
to the reader in the Folio, when he said, 

" Oh, could he but have drawn his wit 
As well in brass, as he hath hit 
His face." 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE: ANDRONICUSI PERICLES. 391 

White's proposition secured unanimous assent and 
thereupon a messenger was summoned and the request 
announced to him. The messenger proved to be Richard 
Brome, whilom a servant to Jonson and a protege and 
admirer of Dekker, the dreamer. Very soon he reappeared 
with the William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon. When 
Shaksper came before the commentators, Malone, who 
was delegated by the assembly to welcome him (first 
making a low obeisance) addressed him thus: "All hail, 
thou prince of poets; thou paragon of philosophers; thou 
divinely inspired dramatist; thou Warwickshire warbler 
of native wood-notes wild; thou William the Conqueror 
who came in before Richard the Third; thou myriad- 
minded, gigantic or rather mastodonic prodigy of intellect; 
thou Nestor in judgment; thou Socrates in philosophical 
genius; thou Ovid in the poetry of love; thou — thou — " 

At this point, the eulogistic Malone was rudely inter- 
rupted by the shade of William of Stratford, who petu- 
lantly exclaimed, " Stop that thouing, Mr. Malone, it is as 
unwelcome as Coke's fling at Raleigh, and very untruthful. 
You are all of you on the wrong scent. Ben Jonson has 
made fools of all of you, and indeed of the whole literary 
world as well. It was not my fault. I never claimed to 
be a poet or a playwriter. I am more sinned against 
than sinning. I never boasted or swaggered about author- 
ship. Like Mrs. Quickly, I do not love swaggering. I can 
not abide swaggerers. I never put my name to any book 
or pamphlet. I am not accountable for the poetical stuff, 
good, bad, or indifferent, which publishers and others 
have fathered upon me. I did not even have the talent to 
write the doggerel which tradition has credited me with — 
not even the epitaph upon the miserly John a Comber. 



392 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Of course, I can not help laughing occasionally at you, 
most learned shades, for being so easily humbugged; but 
that was the way of the world, especially in the publishers' 
line, in my lifetime, and I presume the people are about 
the same now as they were then. They have always 
liked to be humbugged. I bid you all adieu." As he 
started off, White, turning to his astounded and dis- 
appointed associates, said, "You know that I always said 
that that man Shaksper's words have never reached us, 
and not a familiar line from his hand or the record of one 
interview at which he was present, and you all know that 
in the earth-world I always had doubts about his ability 
to write the plays." But White's words were drowned 
and lost in the thundering cry of Malone as he shouted 
after the retreating Shaksper, "Away with you, you 
mouldy rogue, you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt stale 
juggler; away, I say, you scullion, you rampallian, you 
fustilarian; I'll tickle your Catastrophe for you!" 

Returning to Chettle, he who will examine the play of 
Patient Grissel and compare Chettle's rendering of the 
part of Babulo therein with the comic parts of Measure 
for Measure, will recognize at once the style and manner 
of Chettle in that part of Measure for Measure. 

Nevertheless, although Heywoocl and Chettle undoubt- 
edly originated in 1602 the play of Measure for Measure, 
yet there are portions of it which neither of them could 
have composed, as, for instance, the beautiful philosophical 
principles and precepts with which this play abounds. 
Neither Heywood or Chettle could have written the 
dialogue in Act 2, Scene 2, between Angelo and Isabella, 
in which the latter pleads for her brother's life; or the 
commentary of the Duke upon life in Scene 1 of Act 3, 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE : ANDRONICUS: PERICLES. 393 

or the conversation between Claudio and Isabella in the 

same scene. 

They seem to me to be in the Baconian vein, and when 
in Act 5, Scene 1, I read these words of Isabella, 

" For Angelo, 
His act did not overtake his bad intent 
And must be buried but as an intent 
That perished by the way; thoughts are no subjects; 
Intents but merely thoughts." 

I am reminded of what Bacon wrote, as set out in the 
Hermit's speech: 

"Whether he believes me or no, there is no prison to 
the thoughts, which are free under the greatest tyrants." 

My opinion, founded upon the facts hereinbefore 
recited, would be that Francis Bacon took the original 
play of Measure for Measure and dressed and beautified 
it with his views upon life, death, justice, and mercy. 
I think so because no other poet of the time could have so 
revised, amended, and embellished the play. It probably 
came hastily, roughly, and crudely in the first instance 
from the hands of Heywood and Chettle, who certainly 
earned their forty shillings for its production. If it did 
not, and if it came from them as it afterward appeared in 
the Folio of 1623, then the fair and clear presumption is 
that they, Heywood and Chettle, are entitled to the full 
credit for it. But if it did start from them in a crude 
state, it was probably revised and dressed for the enter- 
tainment of the Court between 1602 and 1604, and if 
Bacon was the reviser and beautifier, he did so as a con- 
cealed poet and in the name of Shakespeare. Of course 
my opinion may be erroneous as to the reviser, and some 



394 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

other poet of that era may have executed the revision, 
and I may have erred in my selection. If I have, then 
Michael Drayton should be pointed to as the one next to 
Bacon most capable of such revision. 

There is one expression of the Duke in the first scene of 
Act 1, which would indicate that the words were used for 
the purpose of pleasing King James. The Duke is made 
to say — 

"I love the people, 
But do not like to stage me to their eyes. 
Though it do well, I do not relish well 
Their loud applause and aves vehement." 

Whoever wrote this must have been familiar with the 
King's dislike for the crowding of the multitude about 
him. A shrewd courtier, if he had an opportunity to 
revise the original play, would have been quick to insert 
such a passage in the play. Phillips, at page 214, Vol. 1 
of the "Outlines," speaking of the King's players, says: 
"The company are found playing at Oxford in the early 
part of the summer of 1604. In the Christmas holidays 
of the same year, on the evening of December 26th, the 
comedy of Measure for Measure was performed before the 
Court at Whitehall, and if it were written for that special 
purpose, it seems probable that the lines, those in which 
Angelo (he means Vincentio, the Duke) deprecates the 
thronging of the multitudes to royalty, were introduced 
out of special consideration to James the First, who, as is 
well known, had a great dislike to encountering great 
crowds of people. The lines in the mouth of Angelo 
appear to be somewhat forced, while the metrical disposi- 
tion is consistent with the idea that they might have been 
the result of an after-thought." 



MEASURE for measure: andronicus : PERICLES. 395 

The opinion herein expressed that Francis Bacon 
revised and embellished Measure for Measure is strength- 
ened by the singular and much-quoted sentence found in 
the letter of Sir Tobie Matthew addressed to his patron 
and benefactor, Bacon, wherein he says, " I will not return 
you weight for weight, but measure for measure." 

Among the plays in the First Folio, Titus Andronicus 
was inserted. Although printed several times previously, 
it had never been claimed by nor credited to Shaksper. 
It was first printed in 1594 and then in 1600, and again in 
1611, and it was acted in Henslowe's theatre (where 
Shaksper did not play) as early as January 23, 1593-4. 
There is, therefore, nothing to connect Shaksper with the 
authorship of this play except the unreliable statement 
of Meres and the fact that it is incorporated in the First 
Folio. 

Who reads Titus Andronicus, or who cares to read it? 
Where is the enthusiastic commentator who will go into 
raptures over it, as Schlegel did over Sir John Oldcastle? 
Where is the lecturer who will dilate before admiring 
audiences upon the beauties of the play or the philosophy 
which it teaches? What Shakespeare Club directs its 
members to delineate the virtues or the faults of its heroes 
and heroines? What actor or theatrical manager brings 
it upon the stage? Reader, have you ever waded through 
those columns of horrors upon horrors multiplied which 
abound in the play of Titus Andronicus? If you have 
not, try to read it and compare it with the Midsummer 
Night's Dream or As You Like It or Twelfth Night. Let 
me feast you upon its horrors. In the second scene of 
the very first act, the limbs of Alarbus, the captive son of 
Tamora, the queen of the Goths, are lopped off and his 



396 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

entrails used to feed the sacrificing fire. A little farther 
on in the same scene, Titus Andronicus murders Martius, 
his own son. In the third scene of the second act, Bassa- 
nius is stabbed and murdered in the forest, his body 
thrust into a pit, and Lavinia, his wife, is dragged off and 
ravished. In the next scene of the same act, Martius and 
Quintus, sons of Andronicus, are lured into the same pit 
and left to perish; while in the fifth scene of the same act, 
Lavinia's hands are hacked off and her tongue is cut out. 
Act three, in the first scene, minutely details the cutting 
off with an axe of the hand of Titus by Aaron, the Moor; 
and when that is accomplished, the heads of his two sons, 
Martius and Quintus, and his own mangled hand are pre- 
sented to him. The catalogue of crime is not yet ended, 
for in the second scene of the fourth act, the nurse who 
attended on Tamora is stabbed and killed. In the third 
scene, Titus becomes violently insane, and in the fourth 
scene, a clown is hanged. To continue the chapter of 
murders, mayhem, and rape, the fifth act provides for the 
cutting of Chiron's throat by Titus, and then for the 
deliberate murder of Chiron's brother Demetrius by throat- 
cutting. Titus then causes the bones of the two villains, 
so murdered, to be ground to powder, and the powdered 
mass to be mixed with their blood into a paste. The 
blood of the two victims is saved for this purpose by the 
tongueless and handless Lavinia, and the pasty compound 
is baked into a pie. As soon as this palatable pie is pre- 
pared for use, Titus murders Lavinia and induces Queen 
Tamora to eat the pie which had been made out of the 
blood and bones and heads of her own sons. Lucius then 
kills Saturninus, the emperor, while Titus kills Tamora, 
and her body is thrown forth to beasts and birds of prey. 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE : ANDRONICUS: PERICLES. 397 

Aaron, the arch fiend, "the damned Moor," who is the 
instigator of all these fiendish acts and hellish plots, is 
punished by being buried breast deep in the ground and 
starved to death. In Titus Andronicus the reader is 
treated to twelve murders, a rape, several acts of mayhem 
and mutilation, with a little cannibalism to vary the 
monotony of murder. 

Thackeray, that prince of novelists, must have had the 
Andronicus in his mind's eye when he caused his hero 
Pendennis to lapse into a gloomy, tristful mood, and while 
in that pessimistic state to produce that wonderful tragedy 
at the reading of which, though he killed sixteen persons 
before the second act, his fond mother was unable to 
restrain her laughter, thereby irritating the horror-creating 
author so much that he thrust the tragic masterpiece into 
the fire. 

To give an example of the style of the writer or writers 
of Titus Andronicus, I will cite one of Aaron's speeches in 
reply to the accusations of Lucius, quoting from the first 
scene of the fifth act: 

"Lucius. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds? 
Aaron. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more. 

Even now I curse the day (and yet I think, 

Few come within the compass of my curse), 

Wherein I did not some notorious ill ; 

As kill a man or else devise his death ; 

Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it ; 

Accuse some innocent or forswear myself; 

Set deadly enmity between two friends; 

Make poor men's cattle break their necks; 

Set fire on barns and haystacks in the night, 

And bid the owners quench them with their tears. 

Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves, 



398 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

And set them upright at their dear friends' doors, 
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot. 
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things, 
As willingly as one would kill a fly; 
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed, 
But that I can not do ten thousand more." 

It is no wonder that the commentators, big and little, 
are either in doubt or despair as to Shaksper's authorship, 
or vehement in denial of his right to be the maker or 
begetter of the play. Samuel Johnson, the Sir Oracle of 
the English literati, declares that "all the editors and 
critics agree in supposing this play spurious. I see no 
reason for differing from them, for the coloring of the 
style is wholly different from that of the other plays." 
Hallam says that Titus Andronicus is now by common 
consent denied to be in any sense a production of Shaksper; 
and Verplanck adds that " to these critics may be added 
the names of Malone, Steevens, Boswell, Seymour, and a 
host of others, including all the commentating editors 
except Capell." 

The fiercest and most bitter attack upon the right of 
"the myriad-minded man" to the authorship of this play 
is made by Gerald Massey. He argues that it is absurd 
and ridiculous to father this cannibalistic catalogue of 
horrors upon Shaksper. 

It is clear then that even the Shakespearean critics and 
commentators repudiate Titus Andronicus. They throw 
discredit on Meres, and virtually reject " the true original 
copies" of Heminge and Condell. I think that they are 
right about that. The well-recognized maxim, falsus in 
uno, falsus in omnibus (false in one thing, false in every- 
thing), applies as well in literature as in law. If Heminge 



MEASURE for measure: andronicus : PERICLES. 399 

and Condell falsely and fraudulently imposed Titus An- 
dronicus upon the innocent public, what confidence can 
any sensible person have in the Shaksper authorship of 
any of the plays included in the Folio of 1623? 

With Shaksper out of the way, by the admission of his 
own learned, enthusiastic, and blindly devoted adorers, 
who then did write this rejected play? Can we find a 
father for the unfortunate Titus? 

Upon a cursory examination I was at first inclined to 
believe that Marlowe wrote this play, but upon a careful 
study of it, and a comparison of its unusual words and 
familiar phrases with those of other writers of the period, 
I believe that Francis Bacon had no more to do with its 
composition than I have. He could not have been its 
originator, although he might have been the amender or 
reviser of some part or parcel of it. I am of the opinion, 
based upon the following facts, that Drayton and Dekker 
originally composed this hastily written play. 

In Titus Andronicus there are seventeen words not used 
in the other plays and used only in that play. These are, 
" big-boned, bubbling, Cocytus, dreary, effectually, erst, 
execrable, feere, Hymeneus, ignominy, lovingly, meshed, 
metamorphosis, misbelieving, seizeth, sprawl, sumptuously, 
and waxing"; and there are eight words used once only in 
all the other plays and used in this play, viz: "Any, 
checkered, circling, dissembled, espied, ravisher, re-edified, 
reproachful, ruinate." All these words are Draytonian 
words found in Queen Margaret, Brandon to Mary, 
Idea, Cynthia's Quest, Polyolbion, Harmony of the Church, 
and Barons' Wars. Identical expressions also point to 
Drayton. I give a few examples taken from Nymphiclia, 
the Barons' Wars, Mooncalf, the Owl, and Polyolbion : 



400 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

WORTHILY SUCCEEDS. 

In Act 1, Scene 1, Marcus says: "Whom worthily you 
would have now succeed." 

Drayton, in Barons' Wars, Chapter 5, Line 54, says: 
"Richard, his son, him worthily succeeds." 

CONTENT THEE. 

In Act 1, Scene 2, Titus says: "Content thee, prince." 
Drayton, in Nymphidia, says: "Content thee, I am no 
such thing." 

BE RULED BY ME. 

Tamora says: "My lord, be ruled by me." 
Drayton, in Nymphidia, says: "Be ruled by me." 

. SINGLED FORTH. 

In Act 2, Scene 3, Lavinia says : " Are singled forth to 
try experiments." 

Drayton, in King John to Matilda: "One favor from 
the rest, I singled forth." 

HISSING SNAKES. 

In same scene Tamora says: "A thousand hissing 
snakes." 

Drayton, in Nymphidia, says: "By the hissing of the 
snakes." 

O WONDROUS THING. 

In Act 2, Scene 4, Tamora says: "0 wondrous thing." 
Drayton, in Mooncalf, says: "Omost wondrous thing." 



MEASURE FOR MEARURE : ANDRONICUS: PERICLES. 401 
DISMAL BLACK. 

In Act 4, Scene 2, the nurse says: "A joyful, dismal, 
black and sorrowful issue." 

Drayton, in Lady Jane Dudley, says: " Before the black 
and dismal days begin." And in Isabella to Richard 
Second, Drayton says: " Black, dismal, fatal, inauspicious." 

INCARNATE DEVIL. 

In Act 5, Scene 1, Lucius says: "0 worthy Goth, this 
is the incarnate devil." 

In the Owl, Drayton says : " And makes a saint of an 
incarnate devil." 

ASSURE THEE. 

In the same scene Aaron says: "Why, assure thee, 
Lucius." 

Drayton, in Catherine to Tudor, says: "Assure thee, 
Tudor, majesty can be." 

CRAVE A PARLEY. 

In the same scene Aurelius says: "We crave a parley." 
Drayton, in Nymphidia, says: "A parley now we 
crave." 

BLACK AS JET. 

In Act 5, Scene 2, Titus says: "Provide two proper 
palfries, black as jet." 

Drayton, in King John to Matilda, says: "Thy eyeballs, 
black as jet." 

O SWEET REVENGE. 

In same scene Titus says: "O sweet revenge." 



402 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Drayton, in Barons' Wars, Chapter 6, Line 80, says: 
"0 dire revenge." 

STILL RENEW. 

In Act 5, Scene 2, Saturninus says: "And by her 
presence still renews his sorrows." 

Drayton, in Polyolbion 1, page 108, says: "Old sorrows 
still renews." 

Dekker seems to have written a small part of the play, 
as for instance the first and second scenes of Act 2. 
Ejaculations, such as the following, are used in these two 
scenes, and also by Dekker: "Trust me, monstrous, 
gramercy, would serve your turn, and ring a hunter's 
peal." It was also a habit of Dekker to display his knowl- 
edge of Latin by inserting Latin phrases wherever he could, 
and so in Act 2, Scene 1, he makes Demetrius say: "Sit 
fas aut nefas, till I find the stream to cool this heat, a 
charm to calm these fits. Per stygia, per manes velor." 
I have thought that the words put by Dekker into the 
mouth of Horace, alias Jonson, in Satiro-mastix, concern- 
ing the innocent Moor cut in two in the middle, might 
refer to the play of Titus Andronicus. The words, as put 
into the mouth of Horace, alias Ben Jonson, are: 

"As for Crispinus, that Crispin-asse, and Fannius, his 
play dresser, who (to make the Muses believe their sub- 
jects' ears were starved and that there was a dearth of 
poesy) cut an innocent Moor in the middle to serve him in 
twice; and when he had done, made Paul's work of it; as 
for these twins, these poet apes, their mimic tricks shall 
serve, with mirth, to feast our muse whilst their own 
starve." 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE : ANDRONICUS: PERICLES. 403 

This bloody and revolting play must have been written 
very hurriedly. It undoubtedly suited the taste of the 
frequenters of Henslowe's theatre. In Jonson's Bartholo- 
mew Fair, there is a sneer at those critics who will swear 
that " Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet." 
The Diary of Henslowe shows that Andronicus was acted 
at his theatre on several occasions in 1593, and the edition 
of 1600 recites that it had been often played by the theatri- 
cal servants of the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Derby, 
and the Earl of Sussex. 

The reader will be amazed at the way Pericles has been 
treated by commentators. Heminge and Condell pro- 
fessed in their dedication to the Folio of 1623 to have 
collected and published Shaksper's works. Nevertheless 
the play of Pericles did not appear in that volume, although 
it had been printed in 1609 and 1619 and accredited on 
the title page to William Shakespeare. Heminge and 
Condell ought to have known of these editions and cer- 
tainly of the play itself, for it was a popular play and held 
the stage for many years. It was not until 1664 that it 
appeared with what are now called the Shakespeare plays, 
and with no special authorization. 

Rowe, in his edition of 1709, rejected it, saying that 
" it is owned that some part of Pericles was written by him 
(Shaksper), particularly the last scene." 

Pope's edition followed Rowe's, and in his preface he 
declared that he ''made no doubt that these wretched plays, 
Pericles, Locrine, Sir John Oldcastle, can not be admitted 
as his." 

Following Pope and Rowe, Pericles was rejected by 
Warburton, Theobald, Hanmer, and Johnson, as well as by 
the common popular editions. It never would have 



404 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

appeared again had it not been for Malone's insertion of 
it in his edition. Hallam declared that " from the poverty 
and bad management of the fable, the want of effective 
and distinguishable character and the general feebleness of 
the tragedy as a whole, I should not believe that structure 
to have been Shakespeare's." He elsewhere, in his " Litera- 
ture of Europe, ' ' insists that " the play is full of evident 
marks of an inferior hand." Gifford rejects the play and 
styles it "the worthless Pericles." Collier says, "an 
opinion has long prevailed, and we have no doubt it is 
well founded, that two hands are to be traced in the com- 
position of Pericles. The larger part of the first three acts 
were in all probability the work of an inferior dramatist." 

Here, then, we have a play which seems to have no 
real title to be called a Shakespeare play at all. Ben 
Jonson called it a "mouldy tale" made up "of scraps out 
of every dish." 

The first impression on reading it carefully is that it 
was a play very hastily written, and it bears marks of 
collaboration. Any one who has studied Thomas Dekker's 
style and works will surely recognize Dekker's handiwork 
in parts of this play and especially in the fourth act. The 
conversation between the Pander, Bawd, and Boult, in 
Scene 3, is truly Dekkerian. So also are the conversations 
in Scene 6 of the same act. In Act 2, the conversation 
with the fisherman, in Scene 1, is full of Dekker's familiar 
expressions. "I'll fetch thee with a wanion" occurs in 
Act 2, Scene 1, of the Shoemakers' Holiday, and the 
phrase "the great ones eat the little ones" is found in 
the Roaring Girl, Act 3, Scene 3. Dekker's craving to 
display his knowledge of foreign languages finds ample 
scope in the next scene, wherein the devices upon the 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE : ANDRONICUS! PERICLES. 405 

various shields are set out. Gower's songs are plainly the 
offspring of Dekker in part and Drayton in part. In Act 
4, the phrase "Hight Philoten" is paralleled in Nymphidia, 
and the word "prest," in the sense of prepared, is similarly 
used by Drayton in his Harmony, at page 251. 

I will quote a few instances of Draytonian expressions: 

In Act 2, Scene 5, Simonides says, " I am glad of it with 
all my heart." 

In his Idea, Drayton says, "I am glad, yea, glad with 
all my heart." 

In Act 2, Scene 3, Thais says, "To me he seems like 
diamond to glass." 

In Shore to Edward, Drayton says, " To make a glass to 
seem a diamond." 

Pericles says, "But like lesser lights did veil their 
crowns to his supremacy," while Drayton in Barons' Wars, 
C. 3, S. 18, says, "The lesser lights, like sentinels in war." 
In Act 2, Scene 4, First Lord says, "Wrong not yourself 
then, noble Helicane," while in Matilda, S. 70, Drayton 
says, "Wrong not thy fair youth, nor the world deprive." 
In Act 4, Scene 4, Cleon says, "Were I chief lord of all 
the spacious world," while in Isabel to Mortimer, Drayton 
says, "which was chief lord of the ascendant then." In 
Act 5, Scene 1, Pericles says, "Who starves the ears she 
feeds," while in Brandon to Mary, Drayton says "and 
starve mine ears to hear of my despatch." 

I can find no trace of Bacon in this play. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CAESAR EXAMINED. 

"I'll example you with thievery." 

— Tinion of Athens, iv, 3. 

The play of Richard the Second has attracted more 
attention than any other play contained in the Folio of 
1623, for the reason that it gave rise to a famous incident 
in the Essex conspiracy. The following brief extract 
from the arraignment of Sir Gilly Merrick, as set out in 
Bacon's works, edition of 1803, 3d Vol., p. 183, shows 
how the play was linked with the story of that rebellion, 
the facts as to the acting of the play being introduced in 
evidence to show that Merrick was privy to the plot. 

Merrick was commander over Essex House, and, to 
quote Bacon's words, " some few days before the rebellion 
(about February 1, 1600), with great heat and violence, 
he had displaced certain gentlemen lodged in an house 
fast by Essex-house, and there planted divers of my lord's 
followers and complices, all such as went forth with him 
in the action of rebellion. That the afternoon before the 
rebellion, Merrick, with a great company of others that 
afterwards were all in the action, had procured to be 
played before them the play of deposing King Richard 
the Second. Neither was it casual, but a play bespoken 
by Merrick. And not so only, but when it was told him 
by one of the players that the play was old, and they 
should have loss in playing it, because few would come 
to it, there were forty shillings extraordinary given to 
play it, and so thereupon played it was. So earnest was 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CiESAR. 407 

he to satisfy his eyes with the sight of that tragedy, which 
he thought soon after his lordship should bring from the 
stage to the state, but that God turned it upon their own 
heads." 

This incident has been made use of by some writers to 
connect Francis Bacon with the authorship of the play. 
I can not extract from the foregoing recital any argument 
in support of the Baconian theory founded on that occur- 
rence. Indeed, as it is clear that Bacon virtually con- 
ducted the examinations of the prisoners, unless he really 
was " the meanest of mankind," he would not have uttered 
the harsh words that appear in his writings about this 
"Catalinary knot and combination of rebels." Besides, 
there is nothing in the incident itself to connect him with 
the authorship. Merrick's call for the play was not 
inspired by Bacon; and if any other play which lacked 
parent had been called for by Merrick, it could just as 
easily have been fathered upon Bacon. I find that I am 
supported in this opinion by Appleton Morgan, who in 
his "Shakespeare in Fact and in Criticism," at page 178, 
says : 

"If Francis Bacon wrote Richard II, it was a piece of 
matchless effrontery for him to maintain that his own 
production had been displayed as a counterfeit present- 
ment in aid of a treason in which his friend was engaged." 

There is no direct and positive evidence as to the 
authorship, such, for instance, as the declaration of the 
author himself or of the several authors (if more than one), 
and hence I can only give the reader the results of my 
examination of the play, with my opinion based thereon. 

Two things are patent to the reader. The play had 
been tried upon the stage before 1600, for one of the players 



408 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

told Merrick that it was old. It had been upon the stage 
for several years, having probably run its course, and it 
was not popular enough to draw a crowd; and so they 
exacted forty shillings from Merrick, as an extraordinary 
incentive, before they would play it. 

It is mentioned by Meres, and hence the original play 
must have been written before 1598. 

My examination of this play leads me to the conclusion 
that Michael Drayton had a principal part in its com- 
position. I will place before the reader the several phrases 
in each act, with the corresponding resemblances in Dray- 
ton's poems, in corroboration of my view. 

INVETERATE MALICE. 

Gaunt, in Act 1, Scene 1, says, "Aimed at your highness 
no inveterate malice," while Drayton, in his Barons' Wars, 
Canto 1, St. 30, says, "Her too deep settled and inveterate 
malice." 

HIGH A PITCH. 

Richard says, "How high a pitch his resolution soars"; 
and Drayton, in his fourth Eclogue, says, " To soar beyond 
the usual pitch of men." So also in Drayton's Legend of 
Robert Duke of Normandy, he says, 

"To that high pitch as raised his desire, 
Show'd at the first, the pitch it was to fly." 

MAKE INCISION. 

Richard says, "Deep malice makes too deep incision"; 
while in Idea, St. 50, Drayton says, "First make incision 
on each mastering vein." 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CAESAR. 409 

SHARPER SPUR. 

In Act 1, Scene 2, the Duchess says, "Finds brother- 
hood in thee no sharper spur"; and in Piers Gaveston, 
Drayton says, "Which proved sharp spurs to my untamed 
desire." 

MINE INNOCENCY. 

In Act 1, Scene 3, Bolingbroke says, "Mine innocency 
and Saint George to thrive," while Drayton, in Matilda, 
St. 83, says, "0, let the grave mine innocency hold." 

WHOLESOME COUNSEL AND UNSTAYED YOUTH. 

In Act 2, Scene 1, Gaunt says, "In wholesome counsel 
to his unstayed youth"; while Drayton, in his dedication 
to Queen Isabel, says, "Imperfections of heedless and 
unstayed youth," and in his Heroical Epistles, p. 189, he 
says, "Wholesome counsel to." 

NO WHIT. 

Gaunt says, "The waste is no whit lesser than thy 
land." Drayton, in Nymphidia, says, "No whit her 
state impairing." 

COMFORTABLE WORDS. 

The Queen, in Act 2, Scene 2, says, " For heaven's sake, 
speak comfortable words." In Legend of Robert, Drayton 
says, "Giving the soldiers comfortable words"; and he 
uses the same phrase in Queen Margaret. 

I WOULD TO GOD. 

York uses this expression and Drayton also in Duke 
Humphrey to Queen Eleanor. 



410 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



AT SIX AND SEVEN. 

York says, "And everything is left at six and seven"; 
while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 37, says, " Except 
that thou set all at six and seven." 

THE WAVERING COMMONS. 

Bagot says, "And that's the wavering commons"; 
while Drayton, in Richard 2 to Isabel, says, "The uncer- 
tain commons, touched with inward care." 

STANDS CONDEMNED. 

Bolingbroke says, "Will you permit that I shall stand 
condemned"; Bushy says, "Wherein the king stands 
generally condemned"; while Drayton, in King Henry 
to Rosamond, says, " And stand condemned by a council's 
doom." 

'TIS NOT MY MEANING. 

Berkeley says, "Tis not my meaning"; while Drayton, 
in dedication to Harmony, says, "my meaning is not." 

MARS OF MEN. 

York says, "Rescued the Black Prince, that young 
Mars of men"; while Drayton, in Agincourt, says, "That 
Mars of men, this king of earthly kings." 

DISSOLVED TO TEARS. 

Richard, in Act 3, Scene 2, says, " As if the world were 
all dissolved to tears"; while Drayton, in Barons' W 7 ars, 
C. 6, S. 70, says, "Dissolved to tears, she followed him, 
tears." 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CESAR. 411 

AN ANOINTED KING. 

Richard says, "can wash the balm from an anointed 
king," and York says, "Com'st thou because the anointed 
king is here"; while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 5, 
S. 15, says, "The awful. right of an anointed king." 

DEPOSING OF A KING. 

Richard says, "Containing the deposing of a king," 
and again, "For the deposing of a rightful king"; while 
Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 9, says, " What toucheth 
the deposing of a king." 

PLUCKED UP. 

Gardiner says, "Plucked up root and all by Boling- 
broke." Drayton, in the poem of Cromwell, says, "Who, 
her religion plucked up by the root." 

PLUCKED DOWN. 

In Act 4, Scene 1, Richard says, "Your cares set up do 
not pluck my cares down." Drayton, in Pol. 1, p. 157, 
says, "Will pluck down all the church." 

YET UNBORN. 

Carlisle says, "The children yet unborn shall feel this 
day." Drayton, in 2 Margaret, says, "The babe that's 
yet unborn shall rue." 

PLAINTS AND PRAYERS. 

Duchess says, "That hearing how our plaints and 
prayers do pierce." Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 6, 
S. 70, says, " Her plaints so piercing and her grief so much." 



412 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 



TIME RUNS POSTING. 



Richard says, "But my time runs posting on." Dray- 
ton, in Piers Gaveston, says, " When posting time that 
never turns again." 

FATAL HAND. 

Bolingbroke says, "A deed of slander with thy fatal 
hand." Drayton, in Eleanor to Duke Humphrey, says, 
"A fatal hand his sovereign to have slain." 

Such phrases as these are also common to both: "If 
aught but, I doubt not but, give me leave." The play 
uses "sky-aspiring," and Drayton uses "sky-attempting." 

Single words used only once in all the plays, used in 
this play of Richard the Second, and used also by Drayton, 
are as follows: "Abet, crossly, dangling, disburdened, 
intermixed, misgoverned, monarchize, noblesse, stream- 
ing, thundering, well-disposed, well-meaning." 

Michael Drayton was not only thoroughly fitted to 
write the play of Richard the Second, but he was familiar 
with every incident of Richard's reign. He had immor- 
talized Richard in his Epistles, and the subject was pecul- 
iarly in his line. Whoever will read his Barons' Wars and 
his Heroical Epistles, and study Drayton's style, will con- 
clude that there is no necessity for searching for any other 
poet than Michael Drayton to find the principal author 
of Richard the Second. Poor Drayton suffered from the 
indifference of James the First. The king seemed to 
dislike him, and it may have been because of a suspicion 
engendered in the king's mind that Drayton had a main 
hand in the composition of Richard the Second. In 
Drayton's Epistle to George Sandys, as heretofore shown, 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CESAR. 413 

he gives vent to his mortification and disgust at his ill 
treatment by the king. As a matter of fact indisputable, 
the play of Richard the Second was put upon the stage 
before 1597, for its first appearance in print was in that 
year, and the name of no author was attached to it. 

Valentine Simms, who printed that edition for Andrew 
Wise, printed another in the year 1598 and on the title 
page put these words, "By William Shake-speare." 
Between that period and 1608, the additions of the parlia- 
ment scene and the deposing of King Richard were added 
to the original play, and I should be inclined to think that 
these new additions are what Henslowe refers to in the 
Diary, at page 121, by the following entry: "Lent unto 
the company to geve Mr Willsone, Dickers, Drayton and 
Cheattell in part payment of a booke called Perce of 
Exstone, the some of forty shillings." Collier, in a note, 
says, "Sir Piers of Exton killed Richard II, and this play 
was most likely connected with this historical incident." 
Since the new additions to Richard the Second, published 
in 1608, embrace the story of Exton's villainous act, it is 
very likely that Henslowe paid Drayton, Wilson, Dekker, 
and Chettle for these very additions about the first of 
April, 1598. Henslowe, of course, was not very particular 
about the title of the plays which he bought. All that he 
cared to do was to write some name, if only that of one of 
the characters of the play, by which he could identify his 
purchase. 

I must not omit to call the reader's attention to the 
prophecy of Gaunt, recorded in the first scene of act second, 
beginning thus: "Methinks I am a prophet new inspired." 
It is not only in the very style of Drayton, but the lines 
embody the passionate love of the poet for the land of his 



414 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

nativity. Disraeli, in his "Amenities of Literature," 
speaking of the Polyolbion, beautifully and truthfully 
describes Drayton's patriotic feelings when he says, 
"The grand theme of this poet was his fatherland! The 
muse of Drayton passes by every town and tower, and 
tells some tale of ancient glory or of some worthy who 
must never die." 

Drayton's style, to any one familiar with his poems 
descriptive of preparations for war or a campaign, may 
be recognized in Northumberland's speech on the last 
page of the same scene, a part of which is here inserted for 
the reader's convenience : 

" North. Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay 
In Britanny, received intelligence 
That Henry, duke of Hereford, Reginald Lord 

Cobham, 
That late broke from the duke of Exeter, 
His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury, 
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston, 
Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis 

Quoint, 
All these well furnished by the duke of Bretagne, 
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war, 
Are making hither with all due expedience, 
And shortly mean to touch our northern shore." 

The man who wrote the Barons' Wars, the Heroical 
Epistles, and Queen Margaret summed up in them the 
gathering of forces for battle in the very same way that 
Northumberland does in the play at the request of Ross. 

I pass on to the play of Julius Caesar, and I fix the 
date of its composition in the year 1602. In this, I differ 
from the guessers and conjecturers, like Malone and others, 
who have stated that this play could not have been written 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CESAR. 415 

before 1607. I place the date at 1602, for the reason that 
Henslowe so fixes it in his Diary. The entry will be found 
at page 221, and a verbatim copy of it (followed by a note 
of Collier's) reads as follows: 

"Lent unto the companye, the 22 of May, 1602, to geve 
unto Antoney Monday and Mikell Drayton, Webster, 
Mydleton and the rest, in earneste of a Boocke called 
Sesers Falle the some of V li." 

Collier's note at the foot of this page reads thus: 
" Malone passed over this important entry without notice : 
it shews that in May, 1602, four poets who are named (viz., 
Monday, Drayton, Webster, and Middleton) and some 
others not named, were engaged in writing a play upon 
the subject of the fall of Caesar. See Collier's Shake- 
peare 7, 4, where it is contended that the Julius Caesar 
of our great dramatist was written in 1603." 

Collier's opinion that Julius Caesar was written in 1603 
is based upon a fact which actually supports my date and 
is in line with Henslowe's memorandum. Collier says: 
"In Drayton's Barons' Wars, the poet, speaking of Morti- 
mer, says: 

' Such one he was, of him we boldly say 
In whose rich soul all sovereign powers did suit, 
In whom in peace the elements all lay 
So mixed as none could sovereignty impute ; 
As all did govern, yet all did obey; 
His lively temper was so absolute, 
That it seemed when heaven his model first began, 
In him it showed perfection in a man.' 

"Italic type is hardly necessary to establish that one 
poet must have availed himself, not only of the thought, 
but of the very words of the other. The question is, was 



416 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Shakespeare indebted to Drayton or Drayton to Shake- 
speare?" 

The natural and truthful answer to Collier's question is 
that the Shakespeare who wrote the fifth scene of the 
fifth act of Julius Caesar was the Michael Drayton who 
wrote Mortomeriados, published in 1598, and therefore 
there was neither borrowing nor purloining. Craik, the 
author of "The English of Shakespeare," in commenting 
on this scene, at page 345 of his book, says, " This passage 
is remarkable from its resemblance to a passage in Dray- 
ton's poem of the Barons' Wars." 

In Drayton's subsequent edition of the Barons' Wars, 
issued in 1619, he remodeled the passage, retaining, how- 
ever, all the substantive part of the former editions. 

There are other remarkable resemblances, not hitherto 
brought to the notice of scholars in such a way as to call 
particular attention to Drayton. I now note them. In 
Act 2, Scene 1, line 83, Brutus says, " For if thou path 
thy native semblance on." Here "path" is used as a 
verb. Coleridge wished to change the word to "put," 
and so did Knight; but "path" is a Draytonian word, 
and the proper one. In one of Drayton's notes appended 
to Rosamond, he says, "For this never did so strangely 
path itself," and in Duke Humphrey to Eleanor, he says, 
"Pathing young Henry's unadvised ways." 

There was no Decius Brutus as stated in the play. 
Decimus Brutus was meant, and he had been the particular 
favorite and friend of Caesar. In the play he is wrongly 
called Decius, not by the printer, but by the writer of the 
play, and that may account for the nickname of the 
"poet Decius" given by Sir John Davies to Drayton. 

In Act 2, Scene 2, Calphurnia says : 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CjESAR. 417 

"When beggars die, there are no comets seen; 
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of 
princes." 

The same thought occurs in Drayton's Queen Margaret : 

" As when some dreadful comet doth appear, 
Athwart the heaven that throws his threatening light, 
Some, war, some, plagues, some, famine greatly fear; 
Some, falls of kingdoms or of men of might." 

And in Matilda, he says: 

" And as a comet in the evening sky, 
Struck with amazement every wondering eye." 

But in the phrases peculiarly familiar to young scholars 
and declaimers, the identification of Drayton manifests 
itself plainly. Thus, in Act 1, Scene 2, Cassius says: 

"The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it 
With lusty sinews;" 

while Drayton, in Pol. 1, p. 16, says: 

"Their lusty sinews swell, like cables as they strive." 

In the next line of the play the word "stemming" is used, 
and used only once in the plays, and it is used by Drayton 
in Mortimer to Isabel. 

In the same act and scene, Caesar says, " Yond Cassius 
has a lean and hungry look" ; and Drayton, in Pol. 1, p. 77, 
says: "The lean and hungry earth." Cassius says: "And 
bear the palm alone," while Drayton, in Pol. 3, page 46, 
says: "And bear the palm away"; and at page 55, idem, 
he says: "the palm away to bear." Brutus says: "Till 



418 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

then, my noble friend, chew upon this"; Drayton, in his 
epistle to Jeffreys, says: "My noble friend, I would." In 
the third scene of the same act, Casca says: 

" I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 
Have riv'd the knotty oaks"; 

and Drayton, in Eclogue second, says: "Now am I like 
the aged knotty oaks." 

Cassius says : " Our yoke and sufferance shows us woman- 
ish." Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 183, says: " Apparel often 
shows us womanish." 

In Scene 1 of Act 3, Antony says : " A curse shall light 
upon the limbs of men"; while Drayton, in Heroical 
Epistles, p. 184, says: "My curse light on his head." 

In Scene 2 of the same act, Antony says : 

"Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, 
Quite vanquished him." 

Drayton, in the 53d stanza of Matilda, exclaims: 
"Ingratitude, how deeply dost thou wound!" 

First Citizen says : " 0, piteous spectacle ! " while Dray- 
ton, in Barons' Wars, C. 2, S. 67, exclaims: "0, spectacle." 

First Citizen says: "0! most bloody sight"; while 
Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 45, says: "0! most amazing sight," 
and in Barons' Wars, C. 2, S. 69, he says: " 0, bloody age." 

Third Citizen says: "Pluck down benches," and the 
Fourth Citizen says: "Pluck down forms"; while Dray- 
ton, in Pol. 1, p. 157, says: "Will pluck down all the 
Church." 

In the third scene of act four, Brutus says : 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CESAR. 419 

" Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemned to have an itching palm." 

while in Agincourt, Drayton says: 

"Felt as they thought, their bloody palms to itch." 

In the first scene of act five, Cassius says : 

"And in their steads, do ravens, crows and kites," 
while Drayton, in David and Goliath, says: 
"The kites and ravens are not far away." 

In the fourth scene, Lucilius says: "I dare assure 
thee," while Drayton, in Nymphidia, says: "I dare assure 
you." 

Among the words used once only in the plays and used 
in this play, and also used by Drayton, are, "rabblement, 
illuminate, recreate, and tag-rag." The word "caute- 
lous" used in Scene 1, Act 2, is a Draytonian word, used 
by him in Queen Margaret, and it is also found in Corio- 
lanus, A. 4, S. 1, L. 33. 

These striking resemblances show one of two things: 
either that Drayton was a great plagiarist, or else that he 
had a part in the composition of the play generally called 
Julius Caesar. It is clear, as an examination of Hens- 
lowe's Diary will show, that Drayton was the most careful 
and industrious writer of plays of the many poets in Hens- 
lowe's employment. His honesty, sincerity, and ability 
have never been questioned by critics, commentators, or 
students of the drama. The entry of the composition of 
Caesar's Fall shows that Drayton was a party to the 
authorship of the play. It had noble parents. Anthony 



420 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Monday, "our best plotter" (according to Meres), Thomas 
Middleton, and John Webster, three poets and dramatists 
of the first rank, were Drayton's coadjutors. In the Folio 
of 1623 the play is called, at the beginning and over each 
page, "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar," and at the begin- 
ning of the Folio it is entered as " The Life and Death of 
Julius Caesar." 

If the reader will compare the colloquy between Brutus 
and Portia, as found in Act 2, Scene 2, with that between 
Hotspur and Lady Percy, as found in Act 2, Scene 3, of 
Henry the Fourth, he will be struck with the marvelous 
resemblance in the style and even the thoughts expressed. 
If I am right in my opinion, based on the foregoing facts, 
as to the composers of Julius Caesar, it will be found on an 
examination of Henry the Fourth that Drayton wrote 
that particular part of a scene in Henry the Fourth. 

In Act 2, Scene 1, of Julius Caesar, which I particularly 
specify as the work of Drayton, the reader will notice the 
wrong use of the word "exorcist." An exorcist, accord- 
ing to the Standard Dictionary and all other authorities 
as to definition, is one who casts or drives out evil spirits; 
he is one who expels evil spirits by means of adjuration or 
incantation, or the like. The ceremony of exorcism is 
used in the Greek and Latin churches. But in Julius 
Caesar, Ligarius uses the word improperly, for in Act 2, 
Scene 1, replying to Brutus, he says: 

"Thou, like an exorcist, has conjur'd up 
My mortified spirit." 

The writer believed that an exorcist was one who raised 
spirits instead of casting them out. And so in Cymbeline, 



RICHARD THE SECOND AND JULIUS CAESAR. 421 

A. 4, S. 2, the poet wrongly says: "No exorcist harm 
thee," and in All's Well, A. 5, S. 3, the King exclaims 

"Is there no exorcist 
Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?" 

The poet makes the same blunder in Second Henry the 
Sixth, A. 1, S. 4, where Bolingbroke asks, "Will her lady- 
ship behold and hear our exorcisms?" 

If the careful reader will examine the works of Michael 
Drayton, he will find that Drayton was such a blunderer. 
He will also find that Thomas Dekker so blundered in his 
dedication of Satiro-mastix. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3, EXAMINED. 

"Let's go hand in hand." 

—Comedy of Errors, v, 1. 

The earliest reliable evidence as to this play, available 
to the reader, I have carefully collected from Henslowe's 
Diary, the entries being copied from pages 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 ; 
27, 28, and 30. 

"R'd at Henery the VI, the 3 of Marche, 1591, £ 3, 
16s, 5d." 

"R'd at Hary VI, the 7 of Marche, 1591, £ 3." 
"R'd at Hary VI, the 11 of Marche, 1591, 47s, 6d." 
"R'd at Harey the 16 of Marche, 1591, 31s, 6d." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 28 of Marche, 1591, £ 3, 8s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 5 of Aprell, 1591, 41s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 13 of Aprell, 1591, 26s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 21 of Aprell, 1591, 33s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 4 of May 1592, 16s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 7 of Maye 1592, 22s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 19 of Maye 1592, 30s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 25 of Maye 1592, 24s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 12 of June 1592, 33s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 19 of June 1592, 31s." 
"R'd at Harey the 6, the 16 of Janewary 1593, 46s." 
"R'd at Harey the VI, the 31 of Janewary 1593, 26s." 
Collier, the editor, has inserted, at page 22, the follow- 
ing note : " This play, whether by Shakespeare or not, was 
extremely popular and profitable. It produced Henslowe 
£1, lis, Od for his share on its fourteenth representation. 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 423 

On its performance in 1591, we here see that it brought 
him £3, 16s, 5d. Malone was of the opinion that it was 
the First part of Henry the Sixth, included among Shake- 
speare's works; and it is certain that this entry of 3 
March 1591 relates to its original production, as Henslowe 
has put his mark ne in the margin." 

As to the fourth entry, Collier says, "Meaning, no 
doubt, Harey or Henry VI." 

The natural presumption from the foregoing entries is 
that Malone was right in his opinion that this play was 
the first part of Henry the Sixth, unless it can be shown to 
the contrary. 

As the true authorship of the several parts is the matter 
now to be considered, I will state what the results of my 
investigation are, based on an examination of the several 
parts of the play; and I will put the reader in possession 
of the facts so that he can judge for himself. 

It is very clear from a study of the opinions of the most 
learned commentators, believers as they were and are in 
Shaksper's ability and learning, that they nevertheless 
repudiate his authorship of the three parts of Henry the 
Sixth. The following quotation from Verplanck's intro- 
ductory remarks attached to the play in his edition of 
the plays, very clearly and concisely states the consensus 
of opinion on the subject: 

"For two centuries from their first appearance, these 
plays, containing the story of Henry VI, were acknowl- 
edged, read, acted, and printed and reprinted as the gen- 
uine works of Shakespeare, with a universality of acquies- 
cence which was scarcely interrupted by a dogmatic 
doubt or denial of authenticity thrown out by the feeble 
Theobald, the paradoxical Warburton or the over-ingenious 



424 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Morgann. It may, therefore, surprise many readers, who 
may not have kept pace with the later Shakespearean 
criticisms, to be informed that a majority of the later 
English critics have adopted or incline to an hypothesis, 
brought forward by Malone about sixty years ago, that 
the first part of King Henry VI, as it now appears (of 
which no quarto copy is extant), was the entire, or nearly 
the entire production of some unknown ancient dramatist." 

Further on, Verplanck states that "Malone's argument 
is contained in a long dissertation printed in the several 
Variorum editions of Shakespeare. It is founded mainly, 
as relates to this first part, upon its dissimilarity of versifi- 
cation and phraseology to that of Shakespeare; and its 
resemblance in those things to the writings of Greene and 
Peele, etc.; upon the classical allusions and Latin quota- 
tions, too learned and too abundant for the unlettered 
Shakespeare; upon two or three slight historical inaccura- 
cies or discrepancies with the other plays of this series; 
upon the use of Hall's Chronicle as the historical authority, 
instead of Holinshed, who is known to have been Shake- 
speare's guide; with some still slighter circumstances." 

Here, now, is a fatal blow administered to the begetters 
or producers of the three parts of Henry the Sixth, whether 
you call them Heminge and Condell or a syndicate of 
publishers or Francis Bacon. 

Now, my study of the several parts of this play induces 
me to believe that Michael Drayton and Thomas Dekker 
were the principal composers of the play as it appeared in 
the Folio of 1623. I find many traces also of Anthony 
Monday in the play. 

I will first show Drayton's connection with the several 
parts of the play by means of phrases or expressions com- 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 425 

mon to him and also to one of the writers of the play, and 
then supplement them with the list of words used once or 
twice only in this particular play and in all the plays, as 
also in the works of Drayton. Dekker's connection with 
the authorship will then be set out in the same order. 
Some of the identical expressions are as follows: 

LINGERING WARS. 

In A. 1, S. 1, the Messenger says, "One would have 
lingering wars with little cost"; while in Pol. 2, p. 8, Dray- 
ton says, " But by the lingering wars." 

TO ADD TO. 

The third Messenger says, " My gracious lords, to add to 
your laments"; while Drayton, in Isabel to Richard 2, 
says, " To add to our afflictions." 

UNDAUNTED SPIRIT. 

The same messenger says, "His soldiers spying his 
undaunted spirit" ; while in Cromwell, Drayton says, "That 
is the man of an undaunted spirit"; and in Pol. 1, p. 193, 
Drayton says, " Which their undaunted spirits soon made 
that conqueror feel." This phrase is repeated in A. 3, S. 2, 
where Talbot says, " Undaunted spirit in a dying breast"; 
and also in A. 5, S. 5, where Suffolk says, "Her valiant 
courage and undaunted spirit." 

BE NOT DISMAYED. 

In A. 1, S. 2, the Bastard of Orleans says, "Be not dis- 
mayed, for succor is at hand"; while in Eleanor Cobham 
to Duke Humphrey, Drayton says, " Be not dismayed, nor 



426 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

let my name affright" ; and in Owen Tudor to Queen Cath- 
erine, he uses the same expression. 

BE NOT AMAZED. 

Pucelle says, " Be not amazed, there's nothing hid from 
me"; while in Agincourt, St. 4, Drayton says the same. 

TO THE LAST GASP. 

Pucelle says, "Fight till the last gasp, I will be your 
guard," and in the third part, A. 2, S. 1, Warwick says, 
"Where your brave father breathed his latest gasp"; while 
Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 64, says, "To his last 
gasp to move them with his woe," and idem in Divorce. 

BRIGHT STAR OF. 

Charles says, "Bright star of Venus," while Drayton, in 
Idea, St. 4, says, " Bright star of beauty." 

HALCYON DAYS. 

Pucelle says, "Expect St. Martin's summer, halcyon 
days"; while Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 174, says, "Prognosti- 
cates to them a happy halcyon day." 

ENDLESS PRAISE. 

Charles says, in Act 1, Scene 6, "Shall in procession 
sing her endless praise." Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 119, says, 
" But to his endless praise, our English Athelstan." 

SCOURGE OF FRANCE. 

Countess says, in A. 2, S. 3, "Is this the scourge of 
France?" Drayton says, in a note made by him in Elea- 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 427 

nor to Duke Humphrey, "That scourge of France and the 
glory of the Englishman." 

FOR THE NONCE. 

Countess says, "This is a riddling merchant for the 
nonce." Drayton, in Nymphidia, says, "And daintily 
made for the nonce." 

THE WHOLE FRAME. 

Talbot says, "I tell you, Madam, were the whole frame 
here." Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 3, S. 46, says, 
"And the whole frame of heaven made up the choir." 

FAME HATH BRUITED. 

Countess says, "I find thou art no less than fame hath 
bruited." Drayton, in Agincourt, says, "But what is 
bruited of the general fame." 

SHARP AND PIERCING. 

Plantagenet says, in A. 2, S. 4, "Ay, sharp and pierc- 
ing to maintain his truth"; while Drayton, in Nymphidia, 
says, "He had a sharp and piercing sight." 

PLUCK THIS RED ROSE. 

Suffolk says, "I pluck this red rose with young Somer- 
set." Drayton, in Queen Margaret, says, "To pluck their 
red rose quite up by the root." 

I DOUBT NOT BUT. 

Plant., in A. 2, S. 5, says, "I doubt not but with honor 
to redress." Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 168, uses the same 
words. 



428 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

SMOOTHED BROW. 

Warwick, in A. 3, S. 1, says, "As by his smoothed brow 
it doth appear." Drayton, in Pol. 1, p. 152, says, "Who 
to that time still with a smoothed brow." 

FLESH AND SINEWS. 

Exeter says, " Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away" ; 
while Drayton, in Eleanor to Duke Humphrey, says, "To 
tear both flesh and sinews from the bone." 

VULGAR SORT. 

Pucelle says, in A. 3, S. 2, " Talk like the vulgar sort of 
market men." Drayton, in De La Poole to Queen Mar- 
garet, says, "With the base vulgar sort to win his fame." 

LEAN FAMINE. 

Talbot says, in A. 4, S. 2, "Lean famine, quartering 
steel and climbing fire"; while Drayton, in King Henry to 
Rosamond, says, "Nor yet did pale fear or lean famine 
live." 

STRATAGEMS OF WAR. 

Talbot says, in A. 4, S. 5, "To tutor thee in stratagems 
of war"; while in Queen Margaret, Drayton says, "Expert 
in all the stratagems of war." 

ILL-BODING STARS. 

Talbot says, "But malignant and ill-boding stars"; 
while Drayton, in Queen Isabel to Richard 2, says, "And 
all ill-boding planets by consent." 

LIKE A HUNGRY LION. 

Talbot says, "And like a hungry lion did commence"; 
while Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 276, says, "Upon the envied 
French, like hungry lions flew." 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 429 

TO STOP THE EFFUSION OF. 

Gloster says, in A. 5, S. 1, " To stop effusion of our 
Christian blood"; while in Agincourt, Drayton says, "To 
stop the effusion of their husband's gore." 

CONDITIONS OF A FRIENDLY PEACE. 

King Henry says, "To draw conditions of a friendly 
peace"; while in Idea, 63, Drayton says, "I offer free 
conditions of fair peace." 

IN EARNEST OF. 

Pucelle says, A. 5, S. 3, " In earnest of a further benefit." 
Drayton, in Shore to Edward, says, "In earnest of a 
greater good." 

AS IF WITH CIRCE. 

York says, "As if with Circe she would change my 
shape"; while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 6, St. 77, says, 
"And like a Circe metamorphosest." 

CRAVE A PARLEY. 

Suffolk says, "We'll crave a parley"; and Drayton, in 
Idea, 63, says, "A parley now I crave." 

TO SUFFER SHIPWRECK. 

K. Henry, in A. 5, S. 5, says, "Either to suffer ship- 
wreck or arrive," while Drayton, in Elegy to Sandys, says, 
" To suffer shipwreck by my forward pen." 

The following are examples in Part Second: 

RULES THE ROAST. 

Gloster says, in A. 1, S. 1, "Suffolk, the new-made 
Duke that rules the roast" ; while Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 52, 
says, " He was the man that only ruled the roast." 



430 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

WEAR THE DIADEM. 

York says, "Nor wear the diadem upon his head." 
Drayton, in De La Poole to Queen Margaret, says, " By 
true descent, to wear the diadem." 

HEAVED IT UP. 

Duchess says, in A. 1, S. 2, "And having both together 
heaved it up." Drayton, in Q. Margaret, says, "Even to 
the height his powerful hand upheaved." 

WEIGHTY CAUSE. 

Duchess says, "With my confederates in this weighty 
cause." Drayton, in Pol. 1, p. 5, says, "Like some great 
learned Judge to end a weighty cause." Cardinal, in A. 3, 
S. 1, says, "What counsel give you in this weighty cause?" 

ASSURES ME. 

Warwick says, "My heart assures me." Drayton, in 
Isabel to Mortimer, says, "My glass assures me." 

BE PATIENT, GENTLE. 

Gloster says, in A. 2, S. 4, "Be patient, gentle Nell." 
Drayton, in Duke Humphrey to Eleanor, says, " Be patient, 
gentle heart." 

THE NEEDY COMMONS. 

York says, in A. 3, S. 1, " Because I would not tax the 
needy commons." Drayton, in Duke Humphrey to 
Eleanor, says, "Upon the needy commonalty to lay." 

VAUNTS OF NOBILITY. 

Suffolk says, "And such high vaunts of his nobility." 
Drayton, in Matilda, says, "To vaunt of my nobility were 
vain." 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 431 



RAVENOUS WOLVES. 



Q. Margaret says, " For he's inclined as are the ravenous 
wolves"; while Drayton, in Queen Margaret, says, "As 
when a rout of ravenous wolves are met." 



BASILISK AND KILL. 



K. Henry says, in A. 3, S. 2, "Come, basilisk, and kill 
the innocent gazer with thy sight." Drayton, in Mat., 75, 
says, "Like as the basilisk to kill." 



AWKWARD WINDS. 



Q. Margaret says, " And twice by awkward wind from 
England's bank"; while in R. 2 to Isabel, Drayton says, 
" Driven by awkward winds and boisterous seas." 

BREATHLESS CORPSE. 

K. Henry says, " Enter his chamber, view his breathless 
corpse." In Idea, 47, Drayton says, "Oft hath been 
proved the breathless corpse will bleed." 

TIMELESS DEATH. 

Q. Margaret says: 

" Then you belike suspect these noblemen 
As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death." 

While in Queen Margaret, Drayton says: 

" Which good Duke Humphrey first of all must taste 
Whose timeless death interpreted their haste." 

In Duke Robert, Drayton says, "Thy strength was 
buried in his timeless death." 



432 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

nevil's RACE. 
Suffolk says: 

" Whose fruit thou art, 
And never of the N evil's noble race." 

while in Owen Tudor to Q. Margaret, Drayton says, 
"Warwick, the pride of Nevil's haughty race." 

mandrake's groan. 

Suffolk says, " Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's 
groan"; while Drayton, in Geraldine to H. Howard, says, 
"Mandrake's dreadful groan"; and in Nymphidia, he says, 
"By the mandrake's dreadful groan." 

BLACK DESPAIR. 

K. Henry says, in A. 3, S. 3, " And from his bosom purge 
this black despair"; while Drayton, in Lady Jane to Dud- 
ley, says, " Arm'd against black despair and all her kind." 

O, SPECTACLE. 

First Gent, says, in A. 4, S. 1, " 0, barbarous and bloody 
spectacle"; see 3 H. 6, A. 2, S. 5. Drayton, in Barons' 
Wars, C. 2, S. 67, says, "0, spectacle, ever able to affright." 

CLOUTED SHOON. 

Cade says, in A. 4, S. 2, " Spare none but such as go in 
clouted shoon"; while in Pol. 3, p. 95, Drayton says, "the 
club and clouted shoon." 

RUDE AND MERCILESS. 

Messenger says, in A. 4, S. 4, " Of hinds and peasants, 
rude and merciless." Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 4, S. 
43, says, "Whose giddy commons, merciless and rude." 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 433 

KENTISH REBELS. 

Q. Margaret says, "These Kentish rebels would be soon 
appeased"; and King Henry says, " Trust not the Kentish 
rebels"; while Drayton makes Margaret say in De La 
Poole to Q. Margaret, "A Kentish rebel, a base upstart 
groom." 

CURSE LIGHT ON YOU. 

Cade says, in A. 4, S. 7, "God's curse light on you all." 
Drayton, in Isabel to K. Rich. 2, says, " My curse light on 
his head." 

PUISSANT POWER. 

Mess, says, in A. 4, S. 9, " The Queen from France hath 
brought a puissant power"', Somerset says, "With a 
puissant and a mighty power." In Barons' Wars, C. 2, 
in the Argument, Drayton says, " At Burton's bridge the 
puissant powers are met." 

GALLOW GLASSES AND KERNES. 

Mess, says, "Of Gallow glasses and stout Kernes." In 
Her. Epist., p. 176, Drayton says, "To land the Kernes 
and Irish gallow glasses." 

THE FLOWER DE LUCE OF FRANCE. 

York says, in A. 5, S. 1, "On which I'll toss the flower 
de luce of France." Drayton, in Agincourt, says, "Which 
lately lost the flower de luce of France." 

THE RAMPANT BEAR AND RAGGED STAFF. 

Warwick says, "The rampant bear chained to the 
ragged staff." Drayton, in De La Poole to Q. Margaret, 
says, "The white bear rampant and the ragged staff." 



434 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

KITES AND CROWS. 

York says, "And made a prey of carrion kites and 
crows''; while in Barons' Wars, C. 2, S. 67, Drayton says, 
"His quartered corse of kites and crows devoured." 

IT GRIEVES MY SOUL. 

Warwick says, in A. 5, S. 2, " It grieves my soul to leave 
thee unassailed." In Pol. 5, p. 274, Drayton says, "It 
grieves my zealous soul." 

DEDICATE TO. 

Y. Clifford says, "He that is truly dedicate to war." 
Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 4, S. 16, says, " Such as 
indeed were dedicate to arms." 

In the Third Part, some of the expressions are : 

THE REGAL SEAT. 

Warwick says, "And this the regal seat; possess it, 
York." Drayton, in Agincourt, says, "Claiming the 
regal seat." 

ACCURSED BE. 

Exeter says, " Accursed be he that seeks to make them 
foes"; while in K. Henry to Rosamond, Drayton says, 
" Accursed be that heart, that tongue, that breath." 

PROTECTOR OF THE REALM. 

Margaret says, "The Duke is made protector of the 
realm. 11 Drayton, in Q. Margaret, says, "Was both 
protector of the realm and King." 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 435 

MISERABLY SLAIN. 

Rutland says, in A. 1, S. 3, "He be as miserably slain 
as I." In Barons' Wars, C. 6, S. 64, Drayton says, 
" Were at their entrance miserably slain." 

MISERABLE STATE. 

Q. Margaret says, in A. 1, S. 4, "I should lament thy 
miserable state"; while Drayton, in Isabel to R. 2d, says, 
"To part us in this miserable state." 

SINGLED FORTH. 

Richard says, in A. 2, S. 1, "And watched him how he 
singled Clifford forth"; while in King John to Matilda, 
Drayton says, "I singled forth that pleased my fancy best." 

I SEE THREE SUNS. 

Edward says, "Dazzle mine eyes, or do / see three 
suns?" In Queen Margaret, Drayton says, ''Three suns 
were seen, that instant to appear." 

BLAME ME NOT. 

Rich, says, "I know it well, Lord Warwick, blame me 
not." In Mary to Brandon, Drayton says, "Blame me 
not, Brandon"; and in Owen Tudor to Q. Cath. he says, 
" Blame me not, madam." 

KNIT HIS ANGRY BROW. 

Clifford says, in A. 2, S. 2, "Thou smiling, while he 
knit his angry brow." In Mary to Brandon, Drayton says, 
"If when thou com'st I knit mine angry brow." 



436 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

THINGS ILL-GOT. 

K. Henry says, "That things ill got have ever bad 
success." In Mooncalf, Drayton says, "For goods ill- 
gotten do consume as fast." 

FOUL STIGMATIC. 

Q. Margaret says, " But like a foul misshapen stigmatic." 
In De La Poole to Q. Marg't, Drayton says, "Foul, 01- 
favor'd, crook-back'd stigmatic." 

EARTH BE DRUNKEN. 

Warwick says, in A. 2, S. 3, "Then let the earth be 
drunken with our blood"; while in Agincourt, Drayton 
says, "And make our earth drunk with English gore." 

EMBROIDERED CANOPY. 

K. Henry says, in A. 2, S. 5, "Than doth a rich em- 
broidered canopy"; while in Mary to Brandon, Drayton 
says, "Under a rich embroidered canopy." 

DEPARTING GROANS. 

Richard says, "A deadly groan, like life and death 
departing." Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 4, S. 45, says, 
"And for her accents, sad departing groans." 

SWARM LIKE FLIES. 

Clifford says, in A. 2, S. 6, " The common people swarm 
like summer flies"; while in Piers Gaveston, Drayton says, 
"Thus do they swarm like flies about the brim." 

BRAKE SHROUDED. 

1st Keeper says, in A. 3, S. 1, " Under this thick grown 
brake, we'll shroud ourselves"; while in Piers Gaveston, 
Drayton says, "Sits shrouded in some solitary brake." 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 437 

BROOK DELAY. 

Lady Gray says, in A. 3, S. 2, "Right gracious Lord, I 
can not brook delay." In Mary to Brandon, Drayton says, 
"How ill we women brook delay." 

WEAR THE WILLOW GARLAND. 

Bona says, in A. 3, S. 3, "I'll wear the willow garland 
for his sake." In Muses' Elysium, Drayton says, "The 
willow garland weareth." 

AT UNAWARES. 

Warwick says, in A. 4, S. 2, "At unawares may beat 
down Edward's guard"; and in A. 4, S. 4, Queen Eliza- 
beth says, "Or by his foes, surprised at unawares." In 
Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 58, Drayton says, "Turning the 
leaf, he found at unawares." 

STANDS THE CASE. 

Gloster says, in A. 4, S. 5, "Thus stands the case"; 
while in Idea, St. 2, Drayton says, "So stands the case 
with me." 

LAUREL CROWN. 

Clarence says, in A. 4, S. 6, " Adjudged an olive branch 
and laurel crown"; while in the 4th Eclogue, Drayton 
says, "The oaken garland and the laurel crown." 

MANGLED BODY. 

Warwick says, in A. 5, S. 2, "Why ask I that my 
mangled body shows." In Barons' Wars, C. 4, St. 44, 
Drayton says, "In mangled bodies, her anatomy." 



438 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

SANDS AND ROCKS. 

Queen Margaret says, in A. 5, S. 4, "More than with 
ruthless waves, with sands and rocks." In Barons' Wars, 
C. 4, St. 37, Drayton says, "Mongst rocks and sands in 
danger to be lost." 

I desire now to invite the reader's particular attention 
to the remarkable similarity of expression as between the 
author of the third scene of the second act and the third 
scene of the third act of the third part of this play, and 
Drayton in his Polyolbion, Vol. 3, page 74. 

In the second act, Edward, addressing Warwick, says: 

" I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee, 
Thou setter up and plucker down of kings!" 

and in the third act, Queen Margaret says : 

" Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick, peace, 
Proud setter up and puller down of kings!" 

while Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 74, says : 

" Thus fortune to his end, this mighty Warwick brings, 
This puissant setter up and puller down of kings." 

and in Queen Margaret to De La Poole, he says: 

"Proud setter up and puller down of kings." 

Again, in the second scene of the third act, Gloster says : 

" I can add colors to the cameleon ; 
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages." 

while in Piers Gaveston, Drayton says: 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 439 

"Like the cameleon, whilst time turns the hue, 
And with false Proteus put on sundry shapes." 

In the sixth scene of the fifth act, Gloster says : 

" For often have I heard my mother say, 
I came into the world with my legs forward, 
The midwife wondered; and the women cried, 
Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth." 

In Queen Margaret to De La Poole, Drayton says 
(speaking of Gloster), "Born toothed and with his feet 
forward," and a little farther on, "with teeth in his head." 

In the fourth scene of the first act of the Third Part, 
York says, "My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth"; 
while Drayton, in Henry Howard to Geraldine, says, "I 
will renew thee, phoenix-like, again." 

The following expressions are used alike by one of the 
composers of the play and Drayton : 

" A sort of, and to conclude, and yet methinks, as free 
as heart could wish, but now of late, but stay, but to con- 
clude, content thyself, delays breed doubts, how say'st 
thou, insulting Knight, nay, be not angry, proclamation 
made, ravenous wolf, shepherd swain, silly sheep, think'st 
thou, thirsting after, timeless death, unfeigned love." 
Drayton's favorite expressions, "when as," "for then as," 
used in this play, also betray him. 

Words used once only in this play, and not elsewhere 
used in any of the other plays, and used also by Drayton, 
are as follows: 

" Ashy, Atlas, augmented, ban-clogs, behoof, bemoaned, 
bested, Bevis of Southampton, bewrayed, bloodthirsty, 
blotting, certify, choicely, conditionally, confusedly, 
cooped, cornets, dangerously, Deborah, Daedalus, defend- 



440 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

ant, deluded, discerned, divining, easeful, embroidered, 
enchantress, erecting, everliving, exequies, exorcisms, 
expulsed, extinguish, far-fet, foot-stool, forecast, fraudful, 
guerdoned, harbouring, hearten, hunger-starved, ill-got, 
immortalized, impairing, imperiously, intrenched, invec- 
tive, leper, lineally, minotaurs, mirthful, muttered, over- 
weening, overpass'd, overpeered, Parisians, Pendragon, 
procurator, propounded, quenchless, quitting, reproach- 
fully, rigorously, Septentrion, servility, shaghaired, sleight, 
sprawlest, sturdy, subversion, subvert, thirsting, top- 
branch, treacherously, turmoiled, unnaturally, voiding, 
withstand." 

Words used twice only in this play and in the plays, 
and also used by Drayton, are as follows: 

"Affy, Amazonian, attempting, bereaved, big-swoln, 
brown bill, charactered, checkered, commixtures, corrosive, 
degraded, disproportion (as a verb), double, engirt, entic- 
ing, erst, fabulous, forewarned, gazers, heroic, ignobly, ill 
boding, infringed, invocate, luckless, munition, obloquy, 
o'ermatched, overgone, overrun, peaceably, pensive, polit- 
icly, reasonless, remorseless, resident, stigmatic, struggling, 
threadbare, tire, tresses, unconquered, yelping." 

Drayton also uses the following words which are used 
in this play and three times only in all the plays: " Cover- 
ture, deathsman, futherance, remorseless, ruinate, treble, 
younger." 

When the reader considers that Michael Drayton was 
thoroughly familiar with the doings of kings, nobles, and 
commonalty in that period of English and French history 
dramatized in the several parts of this play, and that he 
had celebrated the amours and quarrels of the most notable 
participants in rhyme, he will be the more inclined, after 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 441 

careful examination, to believe, with me, that Michael 
Drayton was a principal composer of Henry the Sixth. 
He is full of poetry, of love, of war, of history, of geography, 
of religion, of the lore of fairy freaks and fairyland. 

Thomas Dekker appears in the second scene of act 
second of 1 Henry 6th; in part of scene first, act first, of 
2 Henry 6th; in the third and fourth scenes of the second 
act; in the third, sixth, and tenth scenes of the fourth act; 
and in the first scene of the fifth act, of the Third Part. 
I trace him by these phrases peculiar to him, as found in 
his plays, as for instance, " I muse, since there's no remedy, 
heart's content, imprimis, I fear me, a fig for, and so 
farewell, it was never merry world, by my faith, gross, 
and, to speak truth, how now, what news, Mass, like an 
ostrich, ay, by my faith." 

The third scene of the first act of the First Part is, in 
my opinion, the sole work of Anthony Monday, the man 
with the " tiger's heart." The reader will remember that 
the play of Sir John Oldcastle has been identified by Hens- 
lowe's Diary as the work of Monday, Drayton, Wilson, 
and Hathaway. Monday opens the play with a quarrel 
and attempt at fighting between the followers of Lord 
Herbert and Lord Powis. There is a great tumult. As 
they are fighting, the mayor and townsmen enter, and the 
mayor orders a proclamation to be read, commanding the 
peace and dispersing the parties. So in Henry the Sixth, 
Gloster's men in blue coats and Winchester's men in 
tawny coats quarrel, and the mayor enters with officers 
and makes a proclamation similar to that made by the 
Mayor of Hereford. 

In the scene in Henry the Sixth, the words are as 
follows : 



442 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

" Win. Gloster, thou'lt answer this before the pope. 
Glo. Winchester goose! I cry — a rope! a rope! 

Now beat them hence, why do you let them stay? 

Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array. — 

Out, tawny coats! — out, scarlet hypocrite! 

(Here Gloster's men beat out the Cardinal's men, and 

enter, in the hurly-burly, the Mayor of London and his 

Officers.) 

May. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates, 
Thus contumeliously should break the peace! 
Glo. Peace, Mayor ! thou knowest little of my wrongs. 
Here's Beaufort, that regards not God nor king, 
Hath here distrained the Tower to his use. 
Win. Here's Gloster too, a foe to citizens; 

One that still motions war, and never peace, 
O'ercharging your free purses with large fines; 
That seeks to overthrow religion, 
Because he is protector of the realm; 
And would have armour, here, out of the Tower, 
To crown himself king, and suppress the prince. 
Glo. I will not answer thee with words, but blows. 

(Here they skirmish again.) 
May. Nought rests for me, in this tumultuous strife, 
But to make open proclamation. — 
Come, officer : as loud as thou canst cry. 
Off. All manner of men, assembled here in arms this 
day, against God's peace, and the king's, we charge 
and command you, in his .highness' name, to repair 
to your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, 
handle, or use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, 
henceforward, upon pain of death. 
Glo. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law; 

But we shall meet, and break our minds at large. 
Win. Gloster, we'll meet, to thy dear cost be sure : 

Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work." 

And in the scene in Oldcastle, the words are these : 



HENRY THE SIXTH, PARTS 1, 2, AND 3. 443 

"(As they are fighting, enter the Mayor of Hereford, 
his officers and townsmen with clubs.) 
May. My lords, as you are liegemen to the crown, 
True noblemen, and subjects to the king, 
Attend his highness' proclamation, 
Commanded by the Judges of Assize, 
For keeping peace at this assembly. 
Her. Good master, Mayor of Hereford, be brief. 
May. Serjeant, without the ceremonies of Yes, 

Pronounce aloud the proclamation. 
Ser. The King's Justices, perceiving what public mis- 
chief may ensue this private quarrel, in his Majes- 
ty's name do stoutly charge and command all 
persons, of what degree soever, to depart this city 
of Hereford, except such as are bound to give 
attendance at this assize, and that no man presume 
to wear any weapon, especially Welsh hooks and 
forest bills." 

The style is that of Monday, and in both plays his 
flings at the papacy are undisguised. Besides, in the 
scene now under consideration, an expression is used pre- 
cisely like that used by Monday in the play of John a Kent, 
viz., "I'll be your Warrantize." 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

RICHARD THE THIRD AND KING JOHN EXAMINED. 

"An honest tale speeds best being plainly told." 

—Richard Third, iv, 4. 

The tragedy of Richard the Third, when it was first 
published in 1597, for Andrew Wise, contained no refer- 
ence to any author. When again published in 1598, for 
Andrew Wise, the title page contained the following : " By 
William Shake-speare." 

It should be remarked that in 1602, Wise had another 
edition printed with these words added: " Newly aug- 
mented, By William Shakespeare." It was again pub- 
lished in 1605 with the same words, the Shakespeare being 
hyphenated. 

Then it appeared in the Folio of 1623, with additions, 
particularly in scene second of the first act. Who pre- 
pared and put in these additions? They were not in the 
quartos at all. 

In this connection two very singular facts appear, to 
which very little attention has been paid. One of them, 
the last one mentioned, has never been noticed. Hens- 
lowe's Diary shows that in the year 1602 Henslowe paid 
to Benjamin Jonson ten pounds for a play which Henslowe 
calls "Richard Crookback." The entry in the Diary, at 
page 223, is as follows: "Lent unto bengemy Johnsone, 
at the apoyntment of E. Alleyn and Wm Birde, the 24 of 
June 1602, in earneste of a boocke called Richard crock- 
backe, and for new adicyons for Jeronymo the some of 
XII." 



RICHARD THE THIRD AND KING JOHN. 445 

The other fact appears in the sixth volume of " Thomas 
Heywood's Dramatic Works, ' ; published in 1874 by Pear- 
son, at page 352. Hey wood there inserts a copy of a 
prologue and epilogue written by himself and used in the 
acting of Richard the Third. Hey wood prefaces the 
prologue with the following: 

"A young witty lad playing the part of Richard the 
Third, at the Red Bull, the author, because he was inter- 
ested in the play, to encourage him, wrote him this pro- 
logue and epilogue: 'The boy, the speaker.' The pro- 
logue begins thus: 

' If any wonder by what magic charm, 
Richard the third is shrunk up like his arm; 
And where in fulness you expected him, 
You see me only crawling like a limb 
Or piece of that known fabric and no more, 
When he so often hath been view'd before. ' ' 

How Heywood, as an author, was interested in this 
play, he does not explain. He may have referred to the 
True Tragedy of Richard the Third, of which he may have 
been the author, or he may have been a collaborator in 
the making of the Shake-speare play. Whatever relation, 
if any, either Jonson or Heywood had with the play of 
Richard the Third, which we are now considering, my 
examination and study of the play leads me to believe 
that whether Jonson and Heywood had or had not a part 
in it, Michael Drayton, Thomas Dekker, and John Webster 
were concerned in the composition of it. 

The Draytonian expressions are, "A plague upon; I 
humbly take my leave; I will resolve you; God wot; I 
doubt not but; No marvel; bloody; To make amends; 
would to God." 



446 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The Draytonian words found only once in this play and 
in none of the other plays, are: "Bedashed, blindly, 
causer, encompasseth, circling, dewy, dimming, eavesdrop- 
per, ferryman, high reared, libels, light foot, nonage, obse- 
quiously, opprobriously, outshining, revolving, spicery, 
and straitly." Three words, " disgracious, re-edified, 
underhand," are found in Drayton and this play and twice 
only in all the plays. 

Some of the identical phrases are herewith set out: 

In A. 1, S. 1, Gloster says, " Grim-visaged war hath 
smoothed his wrinkled front"; while Drayton, in Pol. 
1, p. 193, says, " Yet with grim-visaged war, when he her 
shores did greet." 

Gloster says, " A bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue," 
while Drayton, in Idea, 42, says, "Some say I have a 
passing pleasing strain." 

Hastings says, "And his physicians fear him mightily," 
while Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 47, says, "And mightily doth 
fear." 

In the second scene, Gloster says, "Is not the causer 
of the timeless deaths," while in Duke Robert, Drayton 
says, "Thy strength was buried in his timeless death." 

In Act 2, Scene 3, Citizen says, "For emulation now, 
who shall be nearest," while Drayton, in Piers Gaveston, 
says, "For emulation ever did attend." 

In Act 3, Scene 2, Hastings says, "What news, what 
news in this our tottering State?" while Drayton, in 
Barons' Wars, C. 1, S. 5, says, "Which, like an earth- 
quake, rent the tottering state." 

In Scene 4, Gloster says, "Upon my body with their 
hellish charms"; while Drayton, in Mooncalf, says, "In 
wreaths contorted, mumbling hellish charms." 



RICHARD THE THIRD AND KING JOHN. 447 

Hastings says, "Who builds his hopes in air of your 
fair looks"; while Drayton, in Idea, 63, says, "I build 
my hopes a world beyond the sky." 

In Scene 5, Gloster says, " And bestial appetite in change 
of lust"; while Drayton, in Piers Gaveston, says, "But 
what might please my bestial appetite." 

In Scene 7, Buckingham says, "This general applause 
and cheerful shout," while in Matilda, S. 6, Drayton says, 
"The wife of Shore wins general applause." 

Buckingham says, "And almost shouldered in the 
swallowing gulf," while in Pol. 3, p. 8, Drayton says, 
"Into that swallowing gulf, which seems as it would 
draw." 

In A. 4, S. 1, Queen Elizabeth says, "To feed my 
humor, wish thyself no harm," while in Drayton's dedica- 
tion to Harmony, he says, "To feed my vain humor." 

Queen Elizabeth also says, " Whom envy hath immured 
within your walls," while Drayton, in De La Poole to 
Q. Margaret, says, "To rouse the French, within these 
walls immured." 

In Scene 4, Richard says, "Wrong not her birth," 
while Drayton, in Matilda, 70, says, "Wrong not thy fair 
youth." 

Richard says, "To high promotions and great dignity," 
while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 1, S. 13, says, "The 
seignories and high promotion." 

Richard says, " She comes again, transformed to orient 
pearl," while Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 193, says, "As though 
her wat'ry path were paved with orient pearl." 

In A. 6, S. 2, Richard says, " Lines of fair comfort and 
encouragement," while in Pol. 3, p. 9, Drayton says, "that 
I should receive much comfort and encouragement therein." 



448 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Richard says, "In God's name, cheerly on," while in 
Pol. 3, p. 217, Drayton says, "Yet cheerly on, my Muse, 
no whit at all dismayed." 

In A. 5, S. 3, Ghost says, " Think how thou stab'st me 
in my prime of youth," while Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 14, 
says, "In my prime of youth." 

Ghost says, "And Richard falls in height of all his 
pride," while Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 144, says, "In her 
height of pride." 

Drayton and one of the writers of the play also use the 
word "annoy" as a noun. One uses the phrase "seat 
royal," and the other, "the royal seat." Richard says, 
"Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary," while 
Drayton says, "delay breeds doubt." The Duchess says, 
"That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute," while 
Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 6, S. 95, says, " Her woe- 
tied tongue, but when she once could free." The Duchess 
says, "Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly and bloody," 
while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 6, says, "A 
man, grave, subtle, stout and eloquent." Richard says, 
"All unavoided is the doom of destiny," while Drayton, 
in Agincourt, says, "0 powerful doom of unavoided fate," 
and in Cromwell, he says, " But ! what man his destiny 
can shun?" Richard says, "devised at first," while 
Drayton, in Matilda, 53, says, "Sure first devised." 

Another Draytonian peculiarity is noticeable in the 
accenting of the word "aspect," heretofore referred to. 
Thus Anne says, "whose ugly and unnatural aspect." 
Now this very word is a part of the addition made to the 
quarto in the Folio. The same word will be found later on 
in Gloster's speech in the same act and scene, where he 
says, "shamed their aspects with store of childish drops," 



RICHARD THE THIRD AND KING JOHN. 449 

and this speech is also a part of the addition to the Folio. 
Unless, therefore, some contemporary dramatist so pro- 
nounced and used the word, it would be fair to presume 
that Drayton made the additions to the Folio. That such 
additions were made by some one after Shaksper's death 
is very clear. Collier says, in his introduction to the plays, 
that " with respect to the additions in the Folio of 1623, 
we have no means of ascertaining whether they formed 
part of the original play. Our text is that of the Folio, 
with clue notice of all the chief variations." He further 
adds, in the same introduction, that "Malone was of the 
opinion that Shakespeare wrote Richard the Third in 
1593, but did not adduce a particle of evidence and none 
in fact exists." 

Passing from Drayton, Dekker's connection with the 
play can be traced by the following exclamations and 
phrases used familiarly by him: "Ay, prithee peace; but 
God be thanked; but leaving this; cry mercy; go current; 
go to; God he knows; gramercy; high imperial; I cry 
thee, mercy then; I cry you mercy; I fear me; I muse; 
Let us to't, pell mell; pitchers have ears; saw'st thou; 
seldom or never; take heed; that as I am a Christian; 
tut, tut; well, let that rest; what news abroad." 

Single words used once only in the plays and by Dekker, 
are: "Cacodaemon, intelligence, pewfellow, prodigality, 
rooting." 

There are two words used in this play and also used by 
Dekker which especially attracted my attention. One is 
"keycolcl," used by Anne in Scene 2 of Act 1, thus: "Poor 
keycold figure of a holy king." It is also used in Tarquin 
and Lucrece at line 1774, thus: "And then in keycold 
Lucrece' bleeding stream"; while in Satiro-mastix, Dekker 



450 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

causes Sir Quintilian to say, " For fear your wise brains 
take key cold." I can not find this word key cold in the 
writings of any contemporary. 

The word "peise" is another unusual word uttered by 
Richmond, in Scene 3 of Act 5. He says, "Lest leaden 
slumbers peise me down to-morrow." Dekker uses it 
thus in Fortunatus, A. 2, S. 2. 

Webster's participation in this play does not seem to 
be large. I trace him by the expressions, "I misdoubt; 
I will love her everlastingly; I'll not meddle with it, this 
palpable device." Act 3, Scene 6, appears to be his. 

As to Francis Bacon, if he had anything to do with 
this play at all, it could only have been by a revision of it. 

The Life and Death of King John made its first appear- 
ance in the Folio of 1623, but in the years 1591, 1611, and 
1622, a play called " the first and second part of the trouble- 
some reign of John, King of England" was printed. The 
issue of 1591 was not ascribed to any one, but that of 1611 
had on the title page the letters " W. Sh" and that of 1622 
had on it "W. Shakespeare." Steevens averred that the 
ascription to Shakespeare was fraudulent. Dr. Farmer 
claimed that William Rowley wrote the play; and Pope 
was of the opinion that it was written by Shakespeare 
and Rowley. 

The man or men who wrote "The Troublesome Reign" 
were haters of Roman Catholicism, for in the play, as 
Collier has shown, "the monks and nuns are turned into 
ridicule and the indecency and licentiousness of their 
lives exposed." 

The present play, if carefully examined, shows that 
two of the makers or revisers were Michael Drayton and 
Thomas Dekker. It is in their style and it embodies 



RICHARD THE THIRD AND KING JOHN. 451 

their phrases and expressions. I will give, as to each, a 
few examples to identify them. 

Identical expressions found in Drayton and in King 
John are as follows: "A muzzled bear; adverse winds; 
arguments of love; arms invasive; barbarous ignorance; 
be ruled by me; cheerful eyes; closely in; come tripping; 
gentry of the land; groveling lies; he intendeth; heaven 
knows; I conjure thee; I find; in the meantime; jaws of 
danger ; linked together ; possession of my bosom ; slippery 
place; speedy messenger; the curse of Rome; the latest 
breath; to the disposing of." Words used only once in 
the plays and used in this play, and also by Drayton, are : 
" Cincture, cockered, dispossessed, fleshly, glorified, gracing, 
groveling, harbored, incessantly, inglorious, invasion, ran- 
sacking, sinewed, unattempted." The word "aspect" is 
also wrongly accented, just as Drayton used it. 

Exclamations pointing to Dekker are, in part, as fol- 
lows: "And so farewell; beshrew thy very heart; by my 
faith; come, come; Godamercy, fellow; I am amazed; I 
muse; in brief; zounds." Identical phrases, in part, are: 
" Dogged spies ; dost thou understand me ; 'foresaid ; 
hanged and quartered ; I was never so ; in likeness of a new- 
trimmed bride; to make a more requital." The Bastard, 
in Act 2, Scene 2, is made to say : " Zounds, I was never so 
bethumped with words since I first called my brother's 
father dad," while Dekker, in 1 H. W., A. 4, S. 2, says, 
" God's life, I was never so thrummed since I was a gentle- 
man." Among the words used once only and also by 
Dekker are "congeal, convertite, and rondure." 

As in Richard the Third, if Bacon had anything to do 
with this play, it could only have been as a hasty shaper 
or reviser of it; I can discover no trace of his style therein. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

HENRY THE EIGHTH AND THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA 
EXAMINED. 

"Every why hath a wherefore." 

—Comedy of Errors, ii, 2. 

In the investigation of the authorship of the play of 
Henry the Eighth, the reader and I should first turn our 
attention to the Diary of Philip Henslowe. So far as is 
now known, this play made its first appearance in print in 
the Folio of 1623. Of course, the commentators, having no 
facts or circumstances favorable to its composition by 
Shaksper to guide them, have indulged in conjectures as 
to the date of its composition. Collier maintains and 
insists that it was written in 1604. Dr. Johnson, Malone, 
and the earlier commentators assign the original date to 
1602, and they assert that additions were made to it in 
1613. To support this theory as to the additions, they 
take the position that it must have been acted first during 
the reign of Elizabeth, and that after her death on the 
24th of March, 1602-3, Ben Jonson wrote the prologue 
and part of Cranmer's speech in the last scene. There 
can be no doubt that the eulogy on King James, which is 
blended with the panegyric of Queen Elizabeth, was 
annexed to the play after the king had ascended the throne. 

While the primary object of this chapter is not to fix 
the exact date of the production of Henry the Eighth, 
yet, when connected with the question of the authorship, 
it becomes a very important matter. An examination of 
Henslowe's Diary shows that while no play under the 



HENRY THE EIGHTH : TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 453 

distinctive name of Henry the Eighth appears therein, 
yet a play does appear under the title of "the Rising of 
Cardinal Wolsey," as to which Henslowe went to a very 
great and extraordinary expense — over one hundred 
pounds — in its preparation for the stage, and four very 
competent and learned dramatists were employed by him 
in its composition. These were Michael Drayton, Anthony 
Monday, Henry Chettle, and Wentworth Smyth. The 
first entry will be found at page 202 of the Diary, and its 
exact reading is as follows: "Lent unto Roberte shawe, 
to lend unto hary Chettell and Antonye Mondaye, and 
Mihell Drayton, in earnest of a boocke called the Rissenge 
of carnowlle Wolsey the 10 of Octobr 1601 xxxx s." At 
page 203, the following entry occurs: "Lent unto the 
companye the 9 of Novmbr to pay unto Mr Mondaye and 
Harry Chettell, in pt payment of a boocke called the 
Risynge of Carnowlle Wollsey the some of x s." And 
again, at page 204, the following entry will be found: " Lent 
unto the company the 12 of Novmbr 1601 to pay unto 
Antony Mondaye and harey Chettell, mihell Drayton and 
Smythe in full paymente of the first pt of carnowll Wollsey 
the some of three pounds." 

Not only did Henslowe pay a handsome sum for this 
play, an unusual thing for him, but it appears that the 
play was licensed piecemeal by the Master of the Rolls, 
and as Collier states and as the Diary shows, "a further 
point established by the same authority is that Henslowe 
expended an unusual amount in getting up the drama. 
On the tenth of August 1601, he paid no less than twenty- 
one pounds for velvet, satin, and taffeta for the dresses, a 
sum equal now to about one hundred pounds. Upon the 
costumes only, in the whole, considerably more than two 



454 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

hundred pounds were laid out, reckoning the value of 
money in 1601 at about five times its value at present." 

I call the reader's attention, in this connection, to the 
remarks of the learned editor of Verplanck's Illustrated 
Shakespeare as to the costume and decorations required 
for the proper staging of this play. "The reign of Henry 
the Eighth," he says, "is admirably fitted for a drama of 
show and splendor, as well in magnificence and variety of 
costume and decoration as in architectural and scenic 
embellishments. The play was probably written originally 
with a view to this very purpose, and it has kept its place 
on the English stage by continual revivals with increased 
cost and splendor." These remarks of the commentator 
are admirably fitted to the play of Cardinal Wolsey, and 
the mere question of name is the only matter of difference 
to be explained. Wolsey is the central figure in the play 
of Henry the Eighth. Henslowe was very apt to call a 
play purchased by him by the name of one of the char- 
acters. I think that he did so as to Love's Labor's Lost, 
designated as "Beroune," and Richard the Second, desig- 
nated as "Piers of Exton." Even the Shakespeare com- 
mentators seem to be of the opinion that the play was put 
upon the stage in 1613, when the Globe Theatre was burned, 
under the name of "All is true." 

The Baconian claim that this play was a continuation 
by Bacon of a historical series, following his Henry the 
Seventh, while an ingenious theory, is unsupported by the 
style of the play. 

I call the reader's attention, in this connection, to the 
peculiarities of the versification, noticed by the various 
editors and felicitously described by Verplanck "as care- 
fully avoiding the pause at the end of lines, and overflow- 



HENRY THE EIGHTH: TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 455 

ing the regular rhythm with added syllables, — not as in 
other plays in a single line or two, here and there, but in 
long passages and apparently on some system." One 
critic says, "If the reader will turn to Act 2, Scene 4, he 
will see that many of the lines end with particles, and that 
scarcely one of the lines is marked by a pause at the ter- 
mination. Many other passages could be pointed out 
with this peculiarity." 

It will not be seriously contended by any students of 
Bacon's style that such manner of versification was a 
peculiarity of his. Neither is there anything in the fact 
that Bacon's prose history of Henry the Eighth was left 
unfinished. In looking over his works, the reader will 
notice that he left many subjects unfinished. In other 
words, he would begin on a particular subject and, before 
proceeding very far, totally abandon it. Besides his 
Henry the Eighth, I notice that, among others, his Essays, 
civil and moral, his New Atlantis, his Advertisement 
touching a holy war and his history of Great Britain, were 
not perfected. He did not always finish what he projected. 
Bacon may have added parts of Cranmer's speech and a 
few other passages prior to the staging of the play in 1613, 
but the great body of the play was evidently not composed 
by him. My own opinion is that Drayton wrote all of the 
Cranmer speech and the greater part of the play. 

Because Drayton's style and Drayton's phrases, as 
well as those of Chettle, appear in this play, it is fair to 
presume that the play called "The Rising of Cardinal 
Wolsey," on which so much money was spent by the 
penurious Henslowe, was the basis or groundwork for the 
revised play of 1613. In that original composition Bacon 
could have had no hand, for he would not have worked on 



456 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

a play in collaboration with the four poets named by 
Henslowe. He could not have done so without creating 
more or less gossip among the players and poets as to his 
participation in the business of playwriting for theatrical 
managers. 

There has always been a feeling of doubt and unrest 
among the best commentators and critics — those who have 
never doubted Shaksper's right to the play — as to the 
authorship of this play. Spedding, who was a brilliant 
writer and the best and most careful biographer of Bacon, 
was of the opinion that the play of Henry the Eighth 
was written by several collaborators. He assigns to John 
Fletcher the third and fourth scenes of the first act; the 
first and second scenes of the second act; all of act three 
(except the second scene) to the king's exit; and all the 
rest of the play except the first scene of act five. I pre- 
sume that Spedding's attention had never been called to 
the three entries in Henslowe's Diary, set out in this 
chapter. I think that he is clearly right in his opinion 
that the play was a collaborated play, but the facts dis- 
closed in the Diary as to the making of the play of The 
Rising of Cardinal Wolsey, coupled with the extraordinary 
expense and pains taken to attract an audience, cause me 
to believe that Drayton, Monday, Chettle, and Smyth 
should receive the credit for the original composition of 
Henry the Eighth. 

There is another fact to be noted regarding the making 
of this play which sustains my view of the authorship as 
to one of the collaborators. This fact has been brought 
out by the very honest and searching investigation of 
Appleton Morgan. This great Shakespearean scholar 
shows, in his "Study of the Warwickshire Dialect," page 



HENRY THE EIGHTH : TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 457 

460, as heretofore quoted, that a great part of Henry VIII 
substantially consists of centos from Holinshed, and that 
the dramatist often reproduces the speeches given by 
the historian. 

Such easy alterations of the prose history would nicely 
suit the views of three or four needy dramatists. 

It must also be considered that Drayton was a War- 
wickshire man, born and bred, and the Warwickshire 
words used in this play can properly be charged to him. 

As a further identification of Drayton's connection 
with this play, I cite the reader to the following confirm- 
atory facts: Wolsey says, "Sweet aspect," with the 
accent on the penultimate, and Drayton, in King Edward 
to Mrs. Shore, uses the phrase "sweet amiable aspect," 
with a similar accent. Wolsey says, "And sounded all 
the depths and shoals of honor," while Drayton, in his 
preface to the Epistles, says, "Sounded the depths of." 
Butts says, "The high promotion of his grace of Canter- 
bury"; and Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 1, S. 13, says, 
"The seignories and high promotion." Cranmer says, 
"And like a mountain cedar," while Drayton, in Margaret 
to De La Poole, says, "And like a mounting cedar." 
Norfolk says, "his practices to light," and Drayton uses 
the same words in Mooncalf. Norfolk says, "in most 
strange postures," and Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 6, 
S. 38, says, "In postures strange, their limber bodies 
bending." Campeius says, "They will not stick to say," 
and Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 10, in his address to the reader, 
says, "And some of our outlandish unnatural English 
stick not to say." Gardiner says, "Commotions, uproars, 
with a general taint," and Drayton, in Pol. 3, p. 48, says, 
"For those rebellions, stirs, commotions, uproars here." 



458 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Gardiner says, "But stop their mouths with stubborn 
bits," while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 2, S. 24, says, 
" The angry horse, chafed with the stubborn bit." Further 
examples are, "Impartial judging; The sacring bell; high 
and mighty; Guy and Colbrand." 

Words used only once in this play and in no other play, 
and used also by Drayton, are, " Bewailing, Bevis, choicest, 
cinque-ports, illustrated, innumerable, praemunire, undoubt- 
edly." 

I have not been able to find, for the purpose of com- 
parison, a copy of any play written by Wentworth Smyth. 

There are several entries in the Diary preceding those 
heretofore quoted, which tend to show that Henry Chettle 
was first employed to write the play of Cardinal Wolsey. 
On August 18, 1601, Chettle received twenty shillings 
from Henslowe "for his book of carnoulle Woltsey," and 
on August 21, 1601, Robert Shaw received from him 
twenty shillings " for vellvett and mackyng of the docters 
gowne in Carnoulle Wollsey." Evidently the other three 
poets were employed to fit the play to suit the taste of the 
theatre-goers. 

Passing from Henry the Eighth, I will briefly consider 
the play of the Two Gentlemen of Verona, in connection 
solely with the question of authorship. 

Any reader of the play, familiar with the learning and 
talents of Francis Bacon, if asked whether in his opinion 
Bacon was the sole composer of this play, would say, I 
think that it was the work of two men at least, and that one 
of the writers either had no especial knowledge of the 
location of the places in Italy, or if he had, did not care to 
be accurate, and further that he had no regard whatever 
for the unities. Bacon certainly never would have made 



HENRY THE EIGHTH : TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA. 459 

seaport towns out of Milan and Verona. He never would 
have indulged in the silly punning on "ship" and "sheep" 
which Proteus and Speed indulge in, in the first scene of 
the first act. He might have taken this play as it came 
crude from the hands of the hasty composers and treated 
it to a revision. 

Thomas Dekker may clearly be traced in it. The 
Milan and Verona blunder would have been an easy matter 
for the poet who placed Horace at the Court of William 
Rufus. Blackstone said that " the great fault of this play 
was the hastening too abruptly and without preparation 
to the denouement." 

Upton and Hanmer were of the opinion that this play 
was "the production of some inferior dramatist" and that 
"Shakespeare could have had no other hand in it than 
enlivening it with some speeches and lines, thrown in here 
and there." Other commentators are of the opinion that 
the play was the earliest work of the idolized ignoramus 
of Stratford. The words used once only, and exclamations 
and phrases which I cull from it, are clearly betrayers of 
the handiwork of Thomas Dekker in this play. They are, 
in part, as follows: "A vengeance on't; an unmannerly 
slave; and so farewell; bear witness; by mine honesty; 
cruel-hearted; currish; fie, fie; full-fraught; gentlemen- 
like; go to; good-hap; he makes me no more ado; here is 
a coil; I fear me; I must where is no remedy; imprimis; 
inscrutable; it is no matter; it shall go hard; lumpish; 
marry, quoth he; metamorphosed; my very heart-strings; 
nothing is impossible; 0, miserable; poor habiliments; 
she hath more hair than wit; so gingerly; tedious nights; 
the best is; to speak puling; true constancy; trust me; 
water spaniel." 



460 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The expression "so gingerly" used by Julia in the 
second scene of Act 1, is used by Dekker in A. 1, S. 1 of 
the Honest Whore. 

Drayton's co-operation with Dekker in this play is also 
manifest. I find it in such identical expressions as the 
following: "A peevish girl; and fit for great employment; 
and yet methinks; how say'st thou; I am peremptory; 
I can not choose but; I dare to be bold; I do conjure thee; 
is she not passing fair; muse not that; not a whit; rude, 
uncivil touch; therefore, I pray you; think'st thou; thou 
know'st; will serve the turn; you are hard beset." 

Reference has been had to the words so aptly called 
Warwickshireisms by Morgan in his careful study of the 
Warwickshire dialect. As summarized, he finds Warwick- 
shireisms in the several plays as follows: In All's Well 
that Ends Well 15, in As You Like It 16, in Anthony and 
Cleopatra 10, in the Comedy of Errors 9, in Coriolanus 13, 
in Cymbeline 7, in Julius Caesar 7, in King John 11, in 
Hamlet 34, in 1st Henry 4th 10, in 2nd Henry 4th 13, in 
Henry 5th 34, in 1st Henry 6th 5, in 2d Henry Sixth 
21, in 3d Henry Sixth 10, in Henry Eighth 9, in Winter's 
Tale 23, in the Merchant of Venice 16, in Troilus and 
Cressida 20, in the Tempest 15, in Twelfth Night 14, in 
King Lear 14, in Love's Labor's Lost 17, in Macbeth 13, 
in Measure for Measure 14, in the Midsummer Night's 
Dream 14, in the Merry Wives of Windsor 9, in Much Ado 
about Nothing 8, in Othello 17, in Pericles 4, in Richard 
the Second 2, in Richard the Third 8, in Romeo and Juliet 
15, in the Taming of the Shrew 9, in Timon of Athens 11, 
in Titus Andronicus 5, and in the Two Gentlemen of 
Verona 4. 

I can find no reference to this play in Henslowe's Diary. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS 
CONSIDERED. 

" A deal of skimble-skamble stuff." 

—First Henry IV, iii, 1. 

Henry the Fourth is not referred to in Henslowe's 
Diary, but Henry the Fifth is noted on page 26, under 
the date of May 14, 1592. Malone fixes the date of First 
Henry the Fourth at 1597; Chalmers, at 1596; and 
Halliwell, at 1593, but I think that the reader will agree 
with me that it must have preceded Henry the Fifth. 
I suspect that the play must have been on the stage at 
first with Oldcastle as the fat leader of the jolly crowd, 
because in Act 1, Scene 2, Prince Henry says, "As the 
honey of Hybla, my old lord of the castle," and the expres- 
sion would be meaningless as applied to Falstaff. It was 
printed in 1598 with no reference whatever to any author, 
and a second edition was issued in 1599, with these words 
added, "Newly corrected by W. Shake-speare." As my 
examination is chiefly directed to the original composition 
of the play, I will leave the question of the maker of the 
correction or revision open for future examination, sug- 
gesting, however, to the unprejudiced reader that in so far 
as the published plays of 1598 and 1599 furnish evidence 
as to composition, the presumption is that, while as to the 
original play the authorship was not stated, the play was 
corrected between 1598 and 1599 by some one whose name 
is set down as "W. Shake-speare." 

The Second Part of Henry the Fourth was printed in 
1600, and it is evident that originally, as in the first part, 



462 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

the name of Oldcastle was used instead of Falstaff, because 
in the second scene of the second act of the quarto of 1600, 
the prefix of "Old." is retained before a speech which 
belongs to Falstaff. 

The Second Part was greatly revised and augmented 
before insertion in the Folio of 1623. As in the case of the 
first part, I am of the opinion that either Francis Bacon 
or Michael Drayton was the reviser. 

The same observation will apply to Henry the Fifth, 
which was enlarged from eighteen hundred to thirty-five 
hundred words, being almost doubled in size. 

As these three plays contain fifty-seven Warwickshire 
words, as shown by Appleton Morgan, and as Drayton 
was a constant reviser, dresser, and augmenter of his pro- 
ductions, it would be fair to presume that he was the man 
who revised these three plays, if he had a part in their 
original production. The main question, therefore, is, 
Who had a part in their original production? I think that 
Michael Drayton and Thomas Dekker had a principal part 
therein. 

In Chapter XXXIII, the facts upon which I base my 
belief that Michael Drayton participated in the composition 
of the three parts of Henry the Sixth were made specially 
prominent. While he, as I believe, also participated in 
the creation of the two parts, first and second, of Henry 
the Fourth and Henry the Fifth, much, very much of the 
comical and mirth-provoking portions of these plays, as 
well as of the Merry Wives of Windsor, must be credited 
to Thomas Dekker. The reader, I think, will discover 
Dekker as one of the composers, first, by the ejaculations 
found in these plays, and which are also found in his 
writings. I cite a part of them as follows : 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 463 

"A good varlet; ay prithee; Beshrew thy heart; 
Beshrew your heart; By my faith; By the wars; By the 
white hand; By this light; Dame Partlet; God-a-mercy; 
Hang him, rogue; Hem; How now, what news; I am 
undone; I cry you mercy; O monstrous; 0, pardon me; 
rare; Prithee peace; Quoth a; Saving your reverence; 
So clap hands, and a bargain; This is excellent sport; 
Thou hempseecl; To conclude; To say the truth; Well, 
God be thanked; Well said, in faith; You muddy conger." 

And secondly, he will also be recognized by the words 
and phrases peculiar to him and also found in these plays, 
such as, "A soused gurnet; aconitum; buff jerkin; car- 
bonado; chuffs; cocksure; et ceteras; flame colored; gal- 
lants; gammon; hydra-headed; midriff; pottlepots; six- 
penny; incomprehensible; intelligencer; leather jerkin; nut 
hook; starveling; stewed prune." 

Thirdly, Dekker will be identified by the expressions 
common both to him and to the Falstaff plays, examples 
of which are here given. 

AMENDMENT OF LIFE. 

Prince Henry says, " I see a good amendment of life in 
thee." Dekker, in Fortunatus, 1-1, says, "But here 
follows no amendment either of life or of livery." 

EXCEEDINGLY WELL. 

Hotspur says, "In faith, it is exceedingly well aimed." 
Dekker, in H. W., A. 2, S. 1, says, " Exceedingly well met." 

GAMMON OF BACON. 

2 Carrier says, "I have a gammon of bacon." Dekker, 
in 2 H. W., A. 2, S. 1, says, " For as much as a gammon of 
bacon." 



464 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

IT HOLDS CURRENT. 

Chamberlain says, " It holds current that I told you." 
Dekker, in Knights Conjuring, says, "It goes for current." 

SHOW IT A FAIR PAIR OF HEELS. 

P. Henry says, "And to show it a fair pair of heels"; 
while Dekker, in Patient Grissel, A. 4, S. 2, says, " But so, 
God help me, mistress, I shall show you a fair pair of heels " ; 
and in Match Me in London, he says, "She hath shewed 
you another bright pair of heels." 

MY OLD WARD, — HERE I LAY. 

Falstaff says, "Thou knowest my old ward: — here I 
lay." Dekker, in the Virgin Martyr, says, "I lay at my 
old ward." 

I MADE ME NO MORE ADO. 

Falstaff says, "I made me no more ado, but took all 
their seven points." Dekker, in 2 H. W., A. 1, S. 1, says, 
"I make me no more ado." 

PLUMED LIKE ESTRIDGES. 

Vernon says, "All plum'd like estridges that wing the 
wind." Dekker, in Fort., A. 2, S. 2, says, "I plumed thee 
like an ostrich." 

SOUSED GURNET. 

Falstaff says, "If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I 
am a soused gurnet." Dekker, in 1 H. W., A. 2, S. 1, 
says, "You soused gurnet." 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 465 
TATTERED PRODIGALS. 

Falstaff says, " That I had a hundred and fifty tattered 
prodigals." Dekker, in 2 H. W., A. 4, S. 1, says, "It's no 
matter, he finds no tattered prodigals here." 

YOU MUDDY CONGER. 

Doll says, "Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang 
yourself." Dekker, in S. Hoi., A. 2, S. 3, says, "Trip and 
go, you soused conger." 

I CAN NOT ABIDE. 

Hostess says, "I can not abide swaggerers." Dekker, 
in Wonders of a Kingdom, says, " I can not abide, sir, to 
see a woman wronged, not I." 

AN EARLY STIRRER. 

K. Henry says, " For our bad neighbors makes us early 
stirrers." Shallow says, "An early stirrer by the road." 
Dekker, in Satiro-mastix, A. 1, S. 1, says, "She's an early 
stirrer, ah sirrah." 

AN ARRANT. 

Fluellen says, "What an arrant, rascally, beggarly, 
lousy knave it is." Dekker, in 2 H. W., A. 2, S. 1, says, 
"It's an arrant grandee, a churl and as damned a cut- 
throat." 

AND SO CLAP HANDS. 

K. Henry says, "In faith do; and so clap hands and a 
bargain." Dekker, in Satiro, says, "Come, friends, clap 
hands, 'tis a bargain." 



466 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

TO SACK A CITY. 

Falstaff says, "Ay, Hal; 'tis hot, 'tis hot; there's that 
will sack a city"; and in 1 H. 6th, A. 3, S. 2, L. 10, the 
First Soldier says, " Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the 
city"; while Dekker, in Honest Whore, page 160, says, 
"Here's ordnance able to sack a city." 

FLESHED THY MAIDEN SWORD. 

P. Henry says, "Come, brother John, full bravely hast 
thou fleshed thy maiden sword." Dekker, in the Virgin 
Martyr (speaking of Antoninus), says, "So well hath 
fleshed his maiden sword." 

Another most remarkable coincidence is found in Act 3, 
Scene 3, 1st Henry the Fourth, where Barclolph says to 
Falstaff, "Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must 
needs be out of compass; out of all reasonable compass, 
Sir John," and Falstaff answers, "Do thou amend thy 
face and I'll amend my life: Thou art our admiral; thou 
bearest the lantern in the poop, — but 'tis the nose of thee; 
thou art the knight of the burning lamp." 

Compare the above with the following from The Won- 
derful Year of 1603 of Dekker. Speaking about noses, 
he says, "Richly garnished with rubies, crysolites and 
carbuncles, which glistered so oriently that the Ham- 
burgers offered I know not how many dollars for his com- 
pany in an East India voyage to have stood a night in the 
poop of their admiral, only to save the charge of candles." 

An examination of the first scene of the first act of 
First Henry the Fourth would lead to the opinion that 
Drayton wrote the scene, if in the fifth line the proper 
word is "Erinnys" instead of "entrance," as claimed by 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 467 

Mason, Steevens, and others. It is a Draytonian word, used 
by Drayton in Idea, sonnet 39, thus : 

" Spiteful Erinnys frights me with her looks ; 
My manhood dares not with foul Ate mell." 

However that may be, in addition to the similarity in 
style, there is a remarkable coincidence in words and also 
in accent between the writer of this scene and Drayton. 
Westmoreland says : 

" This is his uncle's teaching, this is Worcester, 
Malevolent to you in all aspects." 

The writer puts the accent on the second syllable of 
the word " aspect." Now, notice the following from 
Drayton's Owl: 

"For to the proud malevolent aspect." 

Both wrongly accent the word "aspect" and both 
couple the adjective "malevolent" with it. Aspect is also 
wrongly accented in the Comedy of Errors, A. 2, S. 2; 
Love's Labor's Lost, A. 4, S. 3; Merchant of Venice, A. 1, 
S. 1; As You Like It, A. 4, S. 3; Twelfth Night, A. 1, S. 4; 
Winter's Tale, A. 2, S. 1 ; King John, A. 2, S. 1 ; Richard 
Third, A. 1, S. 2, and Henry the Eighth, A. 3, S. 2. 

In 1st Henry IV, A. 2, S. 2, Falstaff says, "I would 
your grace would take me with you. What means your 
grace?" while Drayton, in the Merry Devil of Edmonton, 
says, "Take me with you, good Sir John." In the first 
scene of the third act, Glendower says, " I can call spirits 
from the vasty deep." In the Ninth Nymphal, Drayton 
says, "Thence down to Neptune's vasty deep"; while in 



468 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

De La Poole to Queen Margaret, Drayton says, "And let 
them call the spirits from hell again." Hotspur says, 
"See how this river comes me cranking in"; while in 
Pol. 2, p. 133, Drayton says, "As crankling Manyfold, the 
first that lends him force." Hotspur says, "And here the 
smug and silver Trent shall run"; while in Barons' Wars, 
C. 2, S. 14, Drayton says, "At whose fair foot the silver 
Trent cloth slide." Hostpur says, " 'Tis the next way to 
turn tailor or be red-breast teacher"; while in the Owl, 
Drayton says, "The little red-breast teacheth charity." 

In this scene the following peculiar words used once 
only in the plays are also used by Drayton: "Cranking, 
cressets, moldwarp, tripartite." The word "cantle" is 
also used by Drayton. Hotspur's allusion to ballad-mon- 
gers as mincing poetry, is directly in Drayton's vein. He 
satirizes ballad-makers repeatedly. In his Elegy to 
Reynolds, he exclaims : 

"I scorned your ballad then, though it were done, 
And had for finis William Elderton." 

Passing to the second part of Henry the Fourth, I 
think that the inference from the following facts should 
be that the first scene of the first act is decidedly Dray- 
tonian. Bardolph says, "As good as heart can wish"; 
while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 3, S. 13, says, "As 
heart could wish, when everything was fit." Bardolph 
says, "Prince Harry slain outright," while in Pol. 1, p. 
16, Drayton says, " Six hundred slew outright through his 
peculiar strength." Travers says: 

" And bending forward, struck his armed heels 
Against the panting sides of his poor jade 
Up to the rowel head." 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 469 

while in Agincourt, Drayton says, "They struck their 
rowels to the bleeding sides of their fierce steeds." 

Northumberland says, "So looks the Strond, whereon 
the imperious flood," while in Pol. 3, p. 160, Drayton 
says, "The North's imperious flood." In 2d Henry, A. 4, 
S. 2, Falstaff says, "I'll tickle your catastrophe," while 
Drayton, in the Merry Devil, says, "0, it tickles our 
catastrophe." 

In Henry the Fifth, the style of the scene and the 
reference to Saint Crispin's clay points to Drayton as the 
author of that scene. The king says: 

" He that outlives this day and comes safe home, 
Will stand a tiptoe when the day is named." 

Drayton, in Owen Tudor, says, "Nor stand on tip- 
toe"; and again in Pol. 1, p. 108, he says, "On lofty tip- 
toes then began to look about"; and on page 173, "On 
tip-toes set aloft, this proudly uttereth he." 

King Henry says, "That fought with us on Saint 
Crispin's day," while in Agincourt, Drayton says: 

" Upon Saint Crispin's day, 
Fought was this noble fray." 

York says: 

" My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg, 
The leading of the vaward." 

while Drayton, in Agincourt, says : 

" The Duke of York so dread, 
The eager vaward led." 



470 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

An examination of the Merry Wives of Windsor leads 
me to the belief that Thomas Dekker was one of the original 
makers of this play. I trace him therein by means of the 
exclamations, single words, and phrases common to Dekker 
and one of the writers of the play. I give examples under 
each head. Among the exclamations are, "Ay, forsooth; 
Bear witness; Believe it; By my troth; Come cut and long 
tail; Fie, fie; My hearts; Nay, by the mass; Out, alas; 
Out upon't; Save you; Take heed; Trust me; Well, go 
to." Single words of a remarkable character are as fol- 
lows : " Cataian, catamountain, cornuto, latten, Machiavel, 
Mephistophiles, preposterously, pizzle, tricking, unconfin- 
able." It is noticeable as to the word "peevish" used in 
this play, that it means "foolish." In A. 1, S. 4, line 11, 
Mrs. Quickly says, " His worst fault is, that he is given to 
prayer, he is something peevish that way." Malone argues, 
as to this word, that this was a blunder of Mrs. Quickly 
and that "peevish" meant "precise," but it is used by 
Dekker in the Virgin Martyr as meaning "foolish." Thus 
Harfax says, " Before that peevish lady had to do with 
you." It is also so used by Drayton. 

The phrases used in the play and also used by Dekker 
are in part as follows: 

"And thou deservest it; Attired in a robe of white; Be 
content ; Be ruled ; For all the 'orld ; Have a care ; I am undone ; 
I can not abide; I had rather than a thousand pound; I'll 
sauce them ; My heart misgives me ; Panderly rascals ; Serve 
your turn; Sweating and blowing;There is no remedy;Trudge ; 
Twelve score ; Vanish like hailstones ; Would I were hanged." 

In Act 4, S. 2, Mrs. Page, breaking into rhyme, says: 

" We do not act that often jest and laugh, 
'Tis old but true, Still swine eat all the draff." 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 471 

In the Raven's Almanac, Dekker says, "The still sow 
eats up all the draff." 

In the Merry Wives, Drayton appears in the fifth scene 
of the fifth act, where the fairies enter. 

If Drayton wrote the Merry Devil of Edmonton, a 
play with which he is credited by good evidence, he created 
therein the character of Mine Host Blague, of the George 
at Waltham, who served the good Duke of Norfolk, the 
very same kind of a Host who makes his appearance in 
Drayton's portion of Sir John Oldcastle, and who is 
re-created in the Merry Wives of Windsor as " Mine Host 
of the Garter Inn." The resemblance is very striking. 

The reader has heretofore taken note that Meres 
applies to Drayton the exclamation of Falstaff that 
" there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous 
man." 

In the examination of these plays I have not considered 
the questions raised as to priority of composition, nor as 
to the substitution of Falstaff for Oldcastle. Neither 
have I regarded it as very important to define the status 
of Mrs. Quickly. It appears that in the First Part of Henry 
the Fourth, she was married to the Host of the Boar's 
Head. In the Second Part, she appears as a poor widow 
of Eastcheap. In Henry the Fifth, she appears as the 
wife of Pistol; and in the Merry Wives, she is Mistress 
Quickly, seemingly a stranger to the fat Knight. We cer- 
tainly know that Dekker paid no attention whatever to 
the unities, and we also know that he was a reviser and 
dresser of plays; that the original comedy of the Merry 
Wives of Windsor, printed in January 1601-2, was 
amended, corrected, and revised, and, as such, acted 
before King James in 1604. 



472 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The historical and philosophical parts of the Falstaff 
plays, grouped together under the Shakespeare title, are 
very pleasing and very instructive ; but to the mass of the 
reading public the Falstaffian quips, quirks, and sallies 
of wit bear the palm of excellence. Who but Dekker 
could have said, "Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou 
wilt, if manhood, good manhood be not forgot upon the 
face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live 
not three good men unhanged in England; and one of 
them is fat and grows old"? Who but Dekker could have 
put it into the mouth of Prince Henry, acting in the role 
of his father, to say to himself, " Why dost thou converse 
with that trunk of humors, that bolting hutch of beastli- 
ness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of 
sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manning- 
tree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, 
that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years, 
that villainous, abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, 
that old white-bearded Satan?" And who but Dekker 
could have made Falstaff answer, "My lord, the man I 
know, but to say I know more harm in him than in myself, 
were to say more than I know. That he is old (the more 
the pity) his white hairs do witness it. If sack and sugar 
be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry 
be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: 
if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are 
to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish 
Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind 
Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, 
and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Fal- 
staff, banish not him thy Harry's company; banish plump 
Jack, and banish all the world." 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 473 

It was not in the style or vein of either Bacon or Dray- 
ton to use such phrases as Falstaff and his associates used 
in these three plays, however witty or waggish they were. 

Who amended, revised, and made additions to the Merry 
Wives of Windsor? As it appeared in the Folio of 1623, it 
contains nearly twice the number of lines that the quarto 
of 1602 contained. The speeches of the several characters 
are greatly lengthened and elaborated and new distinctive 
features are given to them. This augmentation and 
revision, if performed by one of the original composers, 
would naturally be the work of Michael Drayton. It is 
either to him or to Francis Bacon that the credit of such 
revision and addition must be awarded. What I claim 
is, that in the play, as revised and added to, the handi- 
work of Dekker and Drayton is shown. 

Whoever will read the Comedy of Errors carefully will 
be struck with the incongruities and anachronisms which 
abound in it. He will find a Nunnery established in the 
old city of Ephesus, presided over by a lady Abbess. The 
Syracusan Antipholus calls himself a Christian. The 
money used consists of ducats, marks, and guilders. 
Modern States of Europe and also America are lugged in. 
There is a probable allusion to Henry the Fourth of 
France, and mention is made of Lapland sorcerers, Turkish 
tapestry, a rapier, and a striking clock. As Knight well 
says as to the allusion to America, "This is certainly one 
of the boldest anachronisms of Shakespeare, for although 
the period of the action of the Comedy of Errors may 
include a range of from four to five centuries, it must cer- 
tainly be placed before the occupation of the city by the 
Mohammedans, and therefore some centuries before the 
discovery of America." 



474 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

It does not seem probable that Francis Bacon, if he 
had originally written a play with such a title, would have 
been guilty of such incongruities and anachronisms. He 
would have been careful and accurate, if he was the original 
composer, as to his allusions to customs, countries, or periods. 

But contrariwise, Thomas Dekker, in the making of a 
play, as heretofore shown, was careless and reckless as 
to the place, time, person, or current event. For instance, 
in Satiro-mastix, Dekker transfers Horace to England and 
describes William Rufus, a rude and ignorant soldier-king, 
as "Learning's true Maecenas, poesy's King." It is also 
a circumstance to be considered that Dekker takes the 
pains in his writings to bring in allusions to this play. 
Thus, in Chapter six of "A Knight's Conjuring," he says, 
"only cause of this Comedy of Errors"; and in Satiro- 
mastix, he prepared an address ad lectorem in which he 
says, "Instead of the trumpets sounding thrice before the 
play begins, it shall not be amiss for him that will read, 
first to behold this short Comedy of Errors." Prior to its 
publication in the Folio of 1623 (although this play was 
acted as early as 1604) it is, so far as is known, mentioned 
only by Meres in his "Palladis Tamia" in 1598; that is to 
say, if by the description "errors," he meant the Comedy 
of Errors. I can find no reference whatever to it in Hens- 
lowe's Diary. The writer, whoever he was, used the 
incidents of the Mensechmi, a story of Plautus, and the 
play, apparently, is the work of collaborators. The tests 
applied indicate to me that Thomas Dekker was one of 
the collaborators. The exclamations point to him; as for 
instance, "Avoid thee, fiend; By my troth; How now, a 
madman; In brief; Now as I am a Christian; Now, trust 
me; Thou villain." 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 475 

The phrases point the same way. I give a few of them, 
Antipholus says, "A mere anatomy, a mountebank," 
while Dekker, in Knight's Conjuring, Chap. 3, says, "A 
miserable anatomy." Dromio E. says, "Am I so round 
with you as you with me," while Dekker, in the dedication 
of Satiro-mastix to the world, says, "World, I was once 
resolved to be round with thee, because I know 'tis thy 
fashion to be round with everybody." Dromio S. says, 
"And here she comes in the habit of a light wench"; 
while Dekker, in 2d H. W., A. 4, S. 2, says, "Light wenches 
are no idle freight." Dromio S. says, "But I guess it 
stood in her chin by the salt rheum that ran between 
France and it." Dekker, in 2d H. W., A. 2, S. 1, says, 
"Am troubled with a whoreson salt rheum." The Duke 
says, "Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?" Dek- 
ker, in S. Hoi., A. 2, S. 4, says, "Speak, saw'st thou him?" 
iEgeon says, "Why look you strange on me?" Dekker, 
in Patient Grissel, says, "Look you so strange." 

The Syracusan Dromio's description of a bailiff, when 
Adriana asks him, "Where is thy master, Dromio, is he 
well?" could only have been coined by Dekker. Dromio 
replies : 

" No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell. 

A devil in an everlasting garment hath him. 

One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel; 

A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough; 

A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff : 

A back friend, a shoulder clapper, one that counter- 
mands 

The passages of alleys, creeks and narrow lands; 

A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry foot 
well; 

One that before judgment, carries poor souls to hell." 



476 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Dekker's life shows that he was often in the hands of 
the officers of the law, and very often confined either in 
the Counter or the King's Bench Prison. Henslowe's 
Diary records two of the arrests — one on page 118 and 
the other on page 143. He was familiar with courts and 
law terms and practice. I have already adverted to his 
legal knowledge. In the play of "If this be not a good 
play," he says, "Proceed with your chancery suit. I have 
begun your bill, humbly complaining"; and in Britannia's 
Honor, he says, "The Lord Mayor's house is a Chancery. 
He is the Chancellor to mitigate the fury of the law. He, 
the moderator between the griping rich and the wrangling 
poor." 

The only contemporary writer whom I could fit in as 
an aid to Dekker in the composition of this play would be 
Henry Porter, who wrote the "Two Angry Women of 
Abingdon." A notable peculiarity of Porter was the 
frequent use of proverbs. The long doggerel lines such as 
are found in the first scene of the third act are precisely 
in the style of Porter, while Dekker also occasionally 
indulges in just such long lines. 

That I am not singular in my suggestion as to the style 
of Henry Porter, I refer the reader to his play of the Two 
Angry Women of Abingdon just cited; and as to his capa- 
bility, I quote what Charles Lamb said of him. After 
setting out some extracts from the play, Lamb adds the 
following: "The pleasant comedy from which these 
extracts are taken is contemporary with some of the 
earliest of Shakespeare's and is in no whit inferior to either 
the Comedy of Errors or the Taming of the Shrew, for 
instance. It is full of business humor and merry malice. 
Its night scenes are peculiarly sprightly and wakeful; the 



FALSTAFF PLAYS AND THE COMEDY OF ERRORS. 477 

versification unencumbered and rich with compound 
epithets." 

But this play of the Comedy of Errors must have been 
revised and shaped into a connected and complete play, 
adapted both to popular audiences and to the Court, by 
Francis Bacon. I am of that opinion because both Dekker 
and Porter wrote hastily and carelessly, and the speech of 
iEgeon in the first scene of the first act contains phrases 
which could only have originated with the author of the 
Venus and Adonis. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE CONSIDERED. 

"Cudgel thy brains no more about it." 

—Hamlet, v, 1. 

In the year 1602, a book called " The Revenge of Ham- 
let, Prince of Denmark, as it was lately acted by the Lord 
Chamberlain's servants, " was printed by James Roberts. 
No copy of this edition has as yet been found. No author's 
name was affixed to it, so far as the entry in the Stationers' 
Register shows. 

In the following year, 1603, a play called "The tragical 
history of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, by William 
Shake-speare, as it hath been divers times acted by his 
Highness' servants in the City of London; as also in the 
two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere, " 
was printed for Nicholas Ling and John Trundell. Noth- 
ing was known as to the time when this play was put upon 
the stage until the year 1790, when Henslowe's Diary was 
found. The following entry was discovered therein, at 
page 35 of Collier's reprint: "9 of June 1594, R'd at 
Hamlet VIII s." The play of Hamlet, therefore, is traced 
back to the year 1594. Malone guessed that the play 
printed by Roberts was composed by Thomas Kyd, but 
he gave no authority or reason for the conjecture. 

A pamphlet of Nash, or rather an epistle of his, pre- 
fixed to Greene's Menaphon, printed in 1589, contains the 
following passage: "It is a common practice now-a-daies 
amongst a sort of shifting companions, that runne through 
every arte and thrive by none to leave the trade of Noverint 



HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE. 479 

wherein they were borne and busie themselves with the 
indevours of art, that could scarcely latinize their necke- 
verse if they should have neede; yet English Seneca read 
by candle light yields manyie good sentences, as Bloud is a 
beggar and so forth; and if you intreate him faire in a 
frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I 
should say handfulls of tragical speeches." This shows, 
at the least, that Hamlet had been acted before 1589. 

Again, in 1596, Dr. Lodge published a pamphlet called 
"Wit's Miserie," which calls one of the devils described 
in it "a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the visard of ye 
ghost which cried so miserably at ye theator like an oister 
wife, Hamlet revenge." 

Steevens, in his Variorum of 1773, says, "I have seen a 
copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer, which formerly 
belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey (the antagonist of Nash), 
who, in his own handwriting, has set down the play as a 
performance with which he was well acquainted in the 
year 1598. His words are these: 'The younger sort take 
much delight in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, but his 
Lucrece and his tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, 
have it in them to please the wiser sort, 1598.'" 

In 1602 Dekker, in his play of Satiro-mastix, alludes 
to Hamlet when he makes Tucca say, "No, Fyest, my 
name's Hamlet's revenge ; thou hast been at Paris Garden, 
hast not?" 

Who now was meant by the William Shake-speare of 
the edition of 1603? If the Venus and Adonis and the 
Tarquin and Lucrece were written by Francis Bacon, as 
the examination which I have given to the two poems 
would seem to show; and if Gabriel Harvey in 1598 was a 
reliable man and knew who the real author was, then the 



480 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

disinterested reader would have the right to conclude that 
Francis Bacon was the author or reviser at least of the 
play of Hamlet. His opinion would also be strengthened 
by the allusion of Nash to the person who "left the trade 
of Noverint, whereto they were born," since Bacon was a 
lawyer. 

And here I might be content to leave the whole matter, 
were it not that the reader is entitled to all the facts that 
can be gathered from the text of the play. In examining 
the text of 1603 and 1623, it would seem that Michael 
Drayton had a part in the composition, either of the 
original play or of the revised play. In the 1603 play, in 
Act 1, Scene 1, Horatio says, "But see the sun in russet 
mantle clad," and in the 1623 edition he says, "But look, 
the morn in russet mantle clad"; while Drayton, in Pol. 
2, p. 120, says, " Himself, a palmer poor, in homely russet 
clad." In the second scene, Hamlet says, " Frailty, thy 
name is woman," repeated in 1623, while Drayton makes 
Rosamond say to King Henry, "Why on my woman 
frailty should'st thou lay?" In the same scene Hamlet 
says, in the play of 1603, "I'll speak to it if hell itself 
should gap," and Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 269, says, "Where 
wounds gap'd wide as hell." 

In the fifth scene of the 1603 play, the Ghost says : 

" O, I find thee apt and duller shouldst thou be 
Than the fat weed which rots itself in ease 
On Lethe wharf." 

Drayton says, in Heroical Epistles, p. 166: 

"Or those black weeds on Lethe bank below." 

In the fourth scene of the third act, of 1623, Hamlet 
says, "And batten on the moor"; while Drayton, in Pol. 



HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE. 481 

3, p. 90, says, "That Somerset may say her battening 
moors do scorn." The sentence does not occur in the 
1603 edition. In the 1623 play (and not appearing in 
that of 1603) Hamlet says, "The important acting of 
your dread command," while Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 121, 
says, "For this great action fit; by whose most dread 
command." Hamlet says: 

" For 'tis the sport to have the engineer 
Hoist with his own petard." 

while in Agincourt, Drayton says : 

" The engineer providing the petard 
To break the strong portcullis." 

In Act 4, Scene 3, the Queen says, "Pulled the poor 
wretch from her melodious lay"; while Drayton, in Pol. 
3, p. 18, says, " By the enticing strains of his melodious 
lay." In Act 5, Scene 1, Hamlet says, "Whose phrase of 
sorrow conjures the wandering stars," while Drayton, in 
Idea, 43, says, " So doth the plowman gaze the wandering 
star." 

Much difficulty has been experienced by the commen- 
tators and critics in interpreting and explaining the word 
"Esile," as printed in the Folio of 1623. The words are, 
"Woul't drink up Esile? eat a crocodile." Furness, in 
the Variorum, Vol. 1, p. 405, says, "With the exception 
of 'the dram of eale,' no word or phrase of this tragedy 
has occasioned more discussion than this Esill or Esile, 
which, as it stands, represents nothing in the heavens 
above or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, 
if from the last we exclude the vessels of the Quarto." 
But I believe that there is no difficulty whatever about 



482 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

the word or its interpretation, and my belief is based on 
the following matter of fact, namely, that a river exists 
in England called the Isell, which Drayton, in the twenty- 
fourth song of Polyolbion, thus alludes to: 

"The one o'er Isell's banks, the ancient Saxons taught, 
At Over Isell rests." 

Stowe, the chronicler, twice refers to it at page 725, 
thus: "It standeth a good distance from the river Isell, 
but hath a sconce on Isell of incredible strength." 

I cite other identical expressions, as follows: "Most 
humbly do I take my leave; But soft, methinks; That's 
not my meaning; My honored lord; And dare scarce; For 
to the noble mind; heavenly powers; in the mean time; 
to your clemency; But to the matter; Mine own good 
lord; for the nonce; will he, nill he; most ingenious; in 
respect of; not a whit; my cause aright." 

Among the words found once only in the plays and in 
Hamlet, and also used by Drayton, are: "A-work, bet, 
bilboes, brainish, compost, croaking, drossy, dumb-shows, 
encumbered, enviously, fatness, hatchment, loudly, occur- 
rent, o'erweigh, pester, portraiture, prosperously, repulsed, 
savior, shove, shrill-sounding, solidity, stiffly, suiting, 
tetter, transports, tricked, unction, unknowing, unmixed." 

There are two words to which I invite the particular 
attention of the reader. In the third scene of the third 
act (folio), Hamlet says, "Up sword and know thou a 
more horrid hent." This word "hent" is a puzzler to the 
commentators. Theobald says, "we must either restore 
bent or hint." Warburton says, "The true word is plainly 
hest, command." Capell adopts hint. But why adopt 
any other word than hent, since Drayton uses it in Polyol- 



HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE. 483 

bion, Vol. 3, p. 226, in connection with the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, thus : " Elizabeth, the next, this falling sceptre 
hent." This shows that as a noun the word means 
"grasp," and as a verb it means "to grasp," or, as used by 
Drayton, "grasped." 

The reader's attention is also called to the word 
"drossy," used only once in the plays and in the fifth 
act, second scene. Hamlet says, "Thus has he and 
many more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age 
dotes on." In the Barons' Wars, Canto 1, Stanza 21, 
Drayton says: 

" That had no mixture of the drossy earth, 
But all compact of perfect heavenly fire." 

These two words, which may be termed very unusual 
words, are not found in the Quarto of 1603; and as they 
are found in Drayton's writings, that fact, coupled with 
the strangeness of the words, is a circumstance to be con- 
sidered in connection with the theory of a revision of the 
original play by Michael Drayton. 

There are other words used twice and thrice only in 
the plays and also used by Drayton which should be 
pointed out, as for instance, " Addicted, attractive, combi- 
nation, extinct, lank, nighted, o'ertop, ponderous, retro- 
grade, robustious, russet, scanned, struggling, trippingly, 
un worthiest, yesty." 

To give the reader an idea of the revision I quote 
Hamlet's soliloquy as it appeared in 1603, and he can 
compare it with the version of 1623, as set out in any of 
the popular editions of the plays : 



484 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

'.' To be or not to be, aye, there's the point, 
To die, to sleep, is that all, aye all; 
No, to sleep, to dream, aye, mary there it goes, 
For in that dream of death, when we wake, 
And borne before an everlasting Judge, 
From whence no passenger ever returned, 
The undiscovered country, at whose sight 
The happy smile and the accursed damn'd, 
But for this, the joyful hope of this, 
Who'd bear the scorns and flattery of the world, 
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curs'd of the poor? 
The widow being oppress'd, the orphan, wrong'd, 
The taste of hunger or a tyrant's reign, 
And thousand more calamities besides 
To grunt and sweat under this weary life, 
When that he may his full quietus make 
With a bare bodkin. Who would this endure 
But for a hope of something after death; 
Which puzzles the brain and doth confound the sense 
Which makes us rather bear those evils we have 
Than fly to others that we know not of. 
Aye, that, this conscience makes cowards of us all." 

This original soliloquy is very much in the style of 
Thomas Dekker. If he did not imitate, he must then 
have originated some of the expressions, phrases, and 
exclamations found in the play. Thus, in Act 1, Scene 2, 
the King says, "To be contracted in one brow of woe," 
and in Patient Grissel, Dekker s ys, "On these, your 
postures, a contracted brow." In t 2, Scene 2, Hamlet 
says, "'Tis not alone my inky cloak"; while in Fort., 
A. 2, Dekker says, "This inky thread." In Act 1, Scene 3, 
Polonius says, "For the apparel oft proclaims the man"; 
while Dekker in Fortunatus, A. 5, S. 2, says, " For apparel 
is but the shadow of a man." In Act 1, Scene 4, Hamlet 
says, "That thou dead corse again in complete steel"; 



HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE. 485 

while Dekker in Satiro-mastix says, " First, to arm our 
wits with complete steel of Judgment." Hamlet says, 
" And you yourself shall keep the key of it " ; while Dekker, 
in Northward Hoe, says, "And your self shall keep the 
key of it." Hamlet says, "Brief chronicles of the times," 
and Dekker, in Knight's Conjuring, says, "very brief 
chronicles." Hamlet says, "But I am pigeon-livered and 
lack gall," and in the Honest Whore, Act 1, Scene 5, 
Dekker says, "Sure he's a pigeon, for he has no gall." 
Hamlet says, "Or to take arms against a sea of troubles." 
In Wonders of a Kingdom, Dekker says, "In such a sea 
of trouble that comes rolling." Hamlet says, "This man 
shall set me packing," while Dekker, in 2 H. W., says, 
"And send her packing." The King says, "Diseases 
desperate grown by desperate appliances are relieved"; 
and in Match Me in London, Dekker says, "To desperate 
wounds, let's apply desperate cure." Hamlet says, "This 
might be the pate of a politician" ; and Dekker, in 1 H. W., 
Scene 10, says, "Perhaps this shrewd pate was mine 
enemy's." 

The following exclamations, found in Dekker's works, 
are identical, " By the mass; Can you advise me; Excellent 
well; Let her be round with him; Like fruit unripe; Mass, 
I can not tell; perdy; Take heed; Well, God-a-mercy; 
Will you be ruled by me; Zounds." 

Among the unusual words are, "hugger-mugger, jig 
maker, over-peering, pocky, quiddets, and sweaty." 

My opinion, based upon the foregoing facts, is that 
Michael Drayton and Thomas Dekker participated in the 
framing of the play of Hamlet for the stage, and that 
Francis Bacon took the play and made it what it now is. 
To me it is quite evident that some superior intellect took 



486 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

the soliloquy which I have quoted, and indeed all of the 
play, and transformed it into the beautiful and captivat- 
ing shape in which it appeared in 1623. 

The Winter's Tale is not referred to in Henslowe's 
Diary, unless the following entry, which appears at page 
167, refers to it : " Lent unto Robert Shaw, the 2 of Aprell 
1600, for to by a Robe for Tyme some of XXX s." This 
may, and probably does, refer to Time, the Chorus who 
comes upon the stage at the beginning of the fourth act. 
And if it does, the play must have been written before the 
spring of 1600. There is an entry on page 29, and the 
only one in the Diary which might refer to the Winter's 
Tale, and if it did, the comedy must have been written 
before 1592. The entry is as follows: "R'd at the gelyous 
comodey the 5 of Janewary 1592 XXXIV s." Henslowe, 
of course, means the "Jealous Comedy," but he gives no 
name to the comedy. As the Winter's Tale was founded 
wholly, as all the commentators admit, upon Greene's 
novel of " Pandosto, or the history of Dorastus and Faunia," 
which was printed in 1588, it is not improbable that the 
Winter's Tale was the "Jealous Comedy" of Henslowe, 
and that it originally appeared on the stage before 1594. 
This suggestion as to the first appearance of the play is 
supported by the following fact: In Dido, Queen of Car- 
thage, by Marlowe and Nash, printed in 1594, a Winter's 
Tale is alluded to in the following lines: 

" Who would not undergo all kind of toil 
To be well storied with such a Winter's TaleV 

All this, however, as to the true name of the "Jealous 
Comedy," is merely conjectural, and the reader is not 
concerned about the question either of identification with 



HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE. 487 

the Jealous Comedy or with the date of the production of 
the Winter's Tale. 

Verplanck shows that the writer or writers of the play 
not only drew the main plot and incidents from Greene's 
book, but occasionally used its very language with the 
same freedom with which he or they employed old Holin- 
shed in the historical plays. "This is done," says Ver- 
planck, " in both cases in such a manner that it is evident 
that he wrote with the book before him." 

I find no traces of Bacon's style or familiar expressions 
in this play. I can not believe that he originated it, or, 
if revised, that he revised it. Attention has been called 
to the words of Perdita in the third scene of the fourth 
act, beginning thus: 

"Out, alas! 
You'd be so lean that blasts of January" 

as embodying Bacon's enumeration and description of 
flowers. But the words of Perdita are directly in line 
with Drayton's prose and poetical references to flowers, 
and the poetry of the Winter's Tale tallies exactly with 
the style of Drayton and Dekker. I will briefly give some 
examples of similarity in the use of words and phrases, 
beginning with Drayton. 

The following words in this play, the most of which are 
found only once in the plays, are also peculiar to Drayton. 
Those occurring but once are first given alphabetically: 

"Amazedly, ampler, behind-hand, clipping, fixure, 
forceful, forewarn, hardened, hornpipes, hovering, indus- 
triously, limber, magnificence, missingly, multiply, poman- 
der, pranked-up, reiterate, scanted, singularities, stupid, 
surpassing, wafting, caparison, cogitation, hent, ponderous, 



488 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

slackness, sneaping, thwack, tincture, verier." Expres- 
sions either identical or almost so are, " And see it instantly; 
as driven snow; damask roses; fortune speed us; homely 
shepherd; I conjure thee; in the behalf of; in respect of; 
it shall scarce boot me; kites and ravens; me thinks I see; 
more straining on; reverse thy doom; she had just cause; 
stuck in ears; think'st thou; what case stand I in; wolves 
and bears." 

I recognize the hand of Thomas Dekker in this play by 
the following familiar expressions, used in the Winter's 
Tale and common to him. They are : " And no more ado ; 
aye, prithee; be advised; by this good light; fie, fie; get 
you hence; go to, go to; hang him; imagine me; in my 
conscience; lend me thy hand; O'er head and ears." 

Words used only once in the plays and also used by 
Dekker are : " Doxy, ebb'd, fantastical, fooleries, ham- 
mered, imprudently, prognostication, and tittle tattling." 

Ben Jonson's fling at the writer of the Winter's Tale, 
that "he wanted art and sometimes sense" has been here- 
tofore alluded to, and the reason given by Ben, that the 
writer pictured Bohemia as having a seacoast, when the 
sea was not within a hundred miles, certainly fits Dekker 
very well, for he, of all the writers of plays in that era, 
was the one who cared least for the unities and proprieties 
either of place or time. 

The reader will notice that in these examinations, I 
have singled out Michael Drayton and Thomas Dekker as 
active participants in the composition of some of the 
so-called Shakespeare plays. Michael Drayton particularly 
has impressed himself upon me as one of the chief com- 
posers of some of the plays, either as an originator or 
reviser. The fact that he was a scholar, a churchman, a 



HAMLET AND THE WINTER'S TALE. 489 

thorough Protestant, a great lover of his country, a good, 
careful, and laborious poet, a wag, full of wit and humor 
and given to coarse merriment, a Warwickshire man, 
familiar with the Warwickshire dialect, a poetical historian, 
a trusted associate and protege of courtiers and noblemen, 
and an admirer and lover of the gentle sex, presents a 
strong circumstance in behalf of my opinion; and when 
added to the similarity between his style and that of one 
of the chief writers of the plays, is very convincing to the 
impartial mind. Born in the forest of Arden, he causes 
Arden to say: 

" Of all the forests here within this mighty Isle, 
If those old Britons then, we sovereign did instile, 
I needs must be the great'st; for greatness 'tis alone 
That gives our kind the place." 

Drayton had the genius and the ability to create a 
Rosalind, a Celia, and an Orlando and place them in the 
forest of Arden. I trace him in Cymbeline, in Antony 
and Cleopatra, in Coriolanus, and in Macbeth. 

Thomas Dekker has also impressed me as a careless, 
witty, and at times eloquent participator in the making 
of some of the plays, for the reason that his style, as shown 
in his own plays, can be traced in some of the Shakespeare 
plays, and for the further reason that, living as he did 
from hand to mouth, he cared nothing for the question of 
proprietorship in a play, or if he did, he would cheaply 
sell the product of his brain. If the reader will, for 
instance, turn to the play of Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, 
Scene 5, and carefully read what appears there after the 
words "Enter Peter," he will find a good illustration of 
Dekker's style, and not only of Dekker's style, but of his 



490 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

peculiarities. He was very fond of the phrase "music 
with her silver sound." This is a quotation from a poem 
by Richard Edwards, in the "Paradise of Dainty Devices/' 
and is quoted thrice in the scene in Romeo and Juliet 
above referred to. Dekker uses it in Fortunatus, thus: 

"Yet, I feel nothing here to make me rich; 
Here's no sweet music with her silver sound." 

He uses it again in the same comedy and also in Satiro- 
mastix. 

Another peculiarity of Dekker's, that of leaving out the 
preposition, is noticeable in Fortunatus, Act 4, Scene 1. 
There Dekker says, "Doom me some easier death"; while 
in Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1, Benvolio says, 
"Stand not amazed — the prince will doom thee death." 

I have not undertaken to add to the tracings by the 
Baconians of Bacon's hand in the plays, either as a reviser 
or originator, because that field has been well cultivated, 
and what I have suggested may lead to greater cultivation. 
Neither have I troubled myself with what Ben Jonson has 
written on the subject, for, as to him, I have adopted the 
opinion which Drummond gave to the world when he said 
that Jonson was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a 
contemner and scorner of others; given rather to lose a 
friend than a jest; jealous of every word and action of 
those about him, especially after drink, which is one of the 
elements in which he lived and a dissembler of the parts 
which reigned in him." 

If what I have written will help to throw light upon 
the authorship of the Shakespeare plays, I shall be abun- 
dantly repaid for my labor, recognizing, as I do, that it is 
imperfect and incomplete. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE. 

''More particulars must justify my knowledge." 

— Cymbeline, ii, 4. 

So far as is now known, the play of Cymbeline did not 
appear in print until 1623. It is really not a tragedy, but 
rather, as Hazlitt terms it, a dramatic romance. The 
studious reader will notice that the writer or writers paid 
little or no attention to antiquarian or historical accuracy. 
Dr. Johnson finds fault with "the folly of the fiction and 
the absurdity of the conduct" as well as " the confusion of 
names and manners of different periods." Malone notices 
that the writer has peopled Rome, not with real Romans, 
but with modern Italians, such for instance as Philario 
and Iachimo, while another critic calls attention to the 
writer's mistake in using the expression "three thousand 
pounds" of tribute. Such absurdity and carelessness 
would indicate that the writer or writers wrote hastily 
and as if they were not in the habit of analyzing every 
character and every country. The first thought in the 
mind of the student who is at all familiar with any of the 
plays of Thomas Dekker, as for instance his Satiro-mastix, 
will be that such confusion and such anachronisms as are 
displayed in Cymbeline indicate that Thomas Dekker had 
a hand in its composition. They certainly indicate that 
Francis Bacon, had he originally composed a play founded 
on the name and reign of an ancient English king, would 
have been careful as to descriptions, whether of name, 



492 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

costume, household appliances, or manners. Bacon never 
would have caused Imogen to say: 

" And if thou canst awake by four o' the clock, 
I pray thee, call me." 

Neither would he have permitted Iachimo to introduce a 
clock into a Roman mansion, as one of the writers thus 
does in Act 5, Scene 5: 

" Upon a time (unhappy was the clock 
That struck the hour!) it was in Rome (accurs'd 
The mansion where)." 

But Dekker, as his readers know, would not hesitate to 
violate any or all of the unities of time or place or cir- 
cumstance. 

We have one reliable means of fixing a time anterior to 
which this play must have been written; and the diary, 
not of Philip Henslowe, but that of the noted astrologer 
Dr. Simon Forman, enables us to do so. He notes the fact 
that he heard the play in 1610. It does not appear in 
Henslowe's Diary, unless called by a name not easily 
recognizable. Who composed the play? I trace at least 
two original composers in it. One of them was Michael 
Drayton and another was Thomas Dekker. 

In addition to the general resemblance in style, I call 
attention to a few peculiarities in the use of words and 
phrases which serve to identify the two dramatists above 
named as composers in part at least of this play. 

What dramatist of the time besides Drayton used the 
word "whenas"? I can find no other. In the Barons' 
Wars he used the word twelve times. In the third canto, 
"whenas" is the initial word of stanzas 2, 3, and 4. The 



THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE. 493 

editor of this poem, printed in Morley's Universal Library, 
commenting on this word, says, "note the not unfrequent 
use (especially in the Barons' Wars) of * when ' where we 
should now write ' then ' in passing from one incident of a 
story to the next. Also the use of the word ' and ' where we 
should now write ' also.' " The use of this word is notable 
in the book or document which Posthumus picks up and 
reads thus, in Act 4, Scene 5: 

"Whenas a lion's whelp shall to himself unknown, 
without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender 
air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, 
which being dead many years shall after revive, be joined 
to the old stock and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus 
end his miseries, Britain be fortunate and nourish in peace 
and plenty." 

This is repeated toward the close of the play in the last 
scene of Act 5. 

But there are other striking resemblances. The word 
"azure," used once only in the plays, is used thus by 
Iachimo in describing the eyes of Imogen: 

"White and azure, lac'd with blue of heaven's own 
tint." 

Drayton, in an ode to his coy love, says: 

"With azure rivers branch 'd." 

The word "azured," used twice only in the plays, is 
used by Arviragus thus: 

"Nor the azur'd harebell, like thy veins." 

The same word is used by Drayton in the letter of King 
Edward to Mrs. Shore. 



494 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The word "commix" is used once only in the plays. 
In Act 4, Scene 2, Arviragus says: 

"To commix 
With winds that sailors rail at." 

Drayton, in Pol. 1, page 135, says: 

"To commix with frail mortality." 

"Foreshowed" is another word used once only in the 
plays. The soothsayer, in Act 5, Scene 2, says: 

"Which foreshowed our princely eagle." 

In the Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 61, Drayton says: 

"His fainting spirit foreshowing danger nigh." 

The word "paled" is used once only in the plays and 
by the Queen in Act 3, Scene 1, thus: 

"As Neptune's park, ribb'd and paled in." 

While in Eleanor to Duke Humphrey, Drayton says : 

"And made the moon pause in her paled sphere." 

"Satiate" is found once only in the plays, and in Act 1, 
Scene 7, Iachimo is made to say: 

"That satiate yet unsatisfied desire." 

Drayton, in Idea, says: 

"And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear." 



THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE. 495 

The word "sluggish," found once only in the plays, 
appears in Cymbeline in Act 4, Scene 2. Belarius, believ- 
ing Imogen to be dead, exclaims : 

a O, melancholy! 
Whoever yet could sound thy bottom? find 
The ooze to show what coast thy sluggish crare 
Might easily harbor in?" 

The word is a Draytonian word, used thus in Pol. 2, 
p. 430: 

"Rousing the sluggish villages from sleep." 

The reader will note also the word "crare" printed in 
the original as care. But a crare or craier is a small 
vessel or boat, and the word which is used by Drayton 
fits the sense. 

The apostrophe to melancholy is also directly in Dray- 
ton's vein. His readers will recall his "0, spectacle," 
"0, bloody age," "0, misery" as found in his writings, 
especially in his Barons' Wars. Posthumus, in Act 5, 
Scene 3, uses the same Draytonian expression, "0, noble 
misery." 

The word "workmanship," occurring but once in the 
plays, appears in Act 2, Scene 4. Iachimo says : 

" So bravely done, so rich that it did strive 
In workmanship and value." 

In the Quest of Cynthia, Drayton says : 

"The curious workmanship to see." 

and in Pol. 1, Song 6, he says: 

"The workmanship so rare." 



496 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

The word "amplify" is found only twice in the plays. 
In Act 1, Scene 6, the Queen says: 

" Is't not meet 
That I did amplify my judgment in." 

and Drayton, in Pol. 2, p. 184, says: 

"To amplify her dower." 

Other like examples can be cited, as crystalline, dis- 
honestly, eglantine, fanes, mutation, o'erborne, resumed, 
rosy, sluttery, and verier. 

The reader's attention is especially directed to the 
phrase similarities in scenes six and seven of Act 1. 

In the first-named scene the following occur: 

The Queen says : 

"His fortunes all lie speechless." 
Drayton, in Divorce, says: 

"Passion speechless lies." 

The Queen also says: 

"And his name 
Is at last gasp. " 

while Drayton, in Barons' Wars, C. 5, S. 64, says: 

"Could any strength afford to his last gasp." 

He uses the same phrase in his Divorce. The Queen 

says: 



THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE. 497 

"It is an earnest of a further good," 

while in Shore to King Edward, Drayton says: 

"In earnest of a greater good we owe." 

Again the Queen says: 

" Tell thy mistress how 
The case stands with her." 

In Idea, S. 24, Drayton says: 

"So stands the case with me." 

Cornelius says, "I humbly take my leave"; and in 
his Dedication to Harmony, Drayton uses the same 
expression. 

In the seventh scene of the same act the resemblances 
are also very striking. Iachimo says, "She is alone the 
Arabian bird." In King John to Matilda, Drayton says, 
"The Arabian bird that never is but one." 

Iachimo says, "To know if your affiance were deeply 
rooted." In Barons' Wars, C. 2, S. 2, Drayton says, 
"For deadly hate, so long and deeply rooted." 

Iachimo says, "Be not angry, most mighty princess"; 
in Queen Margaret to Suffolk, Drayton says, "Yet be not 
angry that I warn thee thus." 

Iachimo says, "That I have adventured to try your 
taking of a false report." In his dedication to the Muses' 
Elysium, Drayton says, "I have often adventured upon 
desperate untrodden ways"; and he uses the same expres- 
sion in Pol. 2, p. 264; and in Heroical Epistles, page 173, 
he says, "Had I adventured thus." 



498 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"Cannot choose but" is used by Iachimo in this scene, 
and it is also used in Act 2, Scene 3. Drayton uses it in 
King Edward to Shore. 

"Noble friend" is used in this scene and also in the 
fifth scene of the same act ; and Drayton begins his Epistle 
to Jeffreys thus, "My noble friend, you challenge me to 
write." 

In Act 2, Scene 2, Iachimo says, "As slippery as the 
Gordian knot was hard." In Howard to Geraldine, 
Drayton says, "And Gordian knots do curiously entwine," 

In the fourth scene of the same act, Posthumus says : 

"It is a basilisk unto mine eye; 
Kills me to look on't." 

In Matilda, Drayton says, "Whose eye seemed as the 
basilisk to kill." 

In Act 5, Scene 4, the words are, "That could stand 
up his parallel." In Pol. 3, p. 14, Drayton says, "A 
parallel may stand." 

Jupiter says, in the same scene, "This tablet lay upon 
his breast." In Duke Robert, Drayton says, "On her 
fair breast, she two broad tablets bore." 

I call attention also to the expressions "not a whit, 
how deeply, to run the country base and be not angry." 
All of them are used in the plays and by Drayton. 

The Warwickshire words used in this play may be 
properly attributed to Drayton, who was a native of that 
county. 

When Imogen, known as Fidele to the two brothers, is 
carried as dead in the arms of Arviragus, and the brothers 
indulge in lamentation over the body of the supposed 
pretty boy, Arviragus says: 



THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE. 499 

"With fairest flowers, 
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: Thou shalt not lack 
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor 
The azur'd harebell like thy veins; no, nor 
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 
Out-sweetened not thy breath: the ruddock would 
With charitable bill (0 bill sore shaming 
Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie 
Without a monument!) bring thee all this; 
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, 
To winter-ground thy corse." 

Any one who has read Drayton's poems, lyrical and 
pastoral, carefully, will recognize, I think, the hand and 
style of Drayton in the foregoing beautiful and touching 
lamentation. The reader will recall these words of Dray- 
ton, " Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye, The 
red-breast teacheth charity." 

Some commentators have called attention to the 
lamentations of Cornelia in the Vittoria Corombona of 
John Webster as being an imitation of it, but Webster 
never was an imitator of any one. Cornelia's lamentation 
mainly brings in animals — the ant, the field mouse, the 
mole, and the wolf; while that of Arviragus chiefly specifies 
flowers, and the favorite flowers, too, with which Drayton 
loved to embellish and beautify his poems. 

Dekker, I think, shows himself very conspicuously as a 
participant in the composition of this long play in act two, 
scene one, and also in the first part of scene three of the 
same act. 

A short example from the beginning of each scene will 
show the reader the Dekkerian style very clearly. In the 
first scene, Cloten enters and says: 



500 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"Was there ever man had such luck! 
When I kissed the Jack upon an up-cast, to be hit 

away! 
I had a hundred pound on't: And then a whoreson 
Jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if 
I borrowed mine oaths from him, and might not 
Spend them at my pleasure." 

In this scene the writer uses Dekker's coarse expres- 
sions, as for instance, " a whoreson Jackanapes," " whoreson 
dog," "a pox on't." The writer also makes the second 
Lord describe the Queen asa" woman, that bears all down 
with her brain" — an expression peculiarly the coinage of 
Dekker, who wrote a play called "Bear a brain." 

The third scene begins thus: 

"Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the 
most coldest that ever turned up ace. 

Cloten. It would make any man cold to lose. 

1 Lord. But not every man patient after the noble 
temper of your lordship; you are most hot and furious 
when you win!" 

In both these scenes there is a special reference to 
gambling, and in the second one to gambling by cards. 

It was characteristic of Dekker in his hasty writing of 
plays and parts of plays to introduce card words and 
phrases. 

Cloten says, "I am advised to give her music of morn- 
ings." Dekker, in the Shoemakers' Holiday, Act 3, Scene 
1, says, "I am advised that what I speak is true." 

Attention has heretofore been called to the fact, show- 
ing two writers at least of this play, that the words Post- 
humus and Arviragus are each accented in the plays in 
different ways. 



THE DRAMATIC ROMANCE OF CYMBELINE. 501 

One of the writers of this play also makes a mistake, 
heretofore adverted to, as to the meaning of the word 
"exorcist." Thus, Guiderius says, "No exorciser harm 
thee." This was a blunder which Bacon would not have 
made; but which Dekker would and did make. In his 
dedication of Satiro-mastix, he writes, "Neither should 
this ghost of Tucca have walked up and down Paul's 
Churchyard, but that he was raised up by new exorcisms." 

This play has received both commendation and con- 
demnation from the learned commentators. Von Schlegel, 
who believed that Sir John Oldcastle, a play composed in 
part by Drayton, was one of the very best of the Shake- 
speare plays, pronounced Cymbeline to be " one of Shake- 
speare's most wonderful compositions." On the other 
hand, Dr. Johnson, one of the most learned and compe- 
tent critics, derided and ridiculed the play, as heretofore 
stated, for the improbability of the plot, the folly of the 
fiction, and the confusion of the names and manners. 

When several persons in Shaksper's time engaged in 
the composition of a play in consideration of such petty 
sums as Henslowe and other managers paid — a play which 
generally had to be finished in a certain time and perhaps 
to please a capricious audience, a play so composed, unless 
revised very thoroughly by a competent and scholarly 
dramatist, would justly be subject to such severe criticism 
as Dr. Johnson pronounced upon Cymbeline. 

An example of such haste, such meagerness of com- 
pensation and untrue designation of the author, is here 
cited. 

In the Stationers' Register, under date of September 
9, 1653, long before Henslowe's Diary was discovered at 
Dulwich College, a play called " the famous wars of Henry 



502 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

the first and the Prince of Wales" was entered as the com- 
position of R. Davenport and William Shakespeare, when 
in fact, as shown at page 120 of the Diary, Manager Hens- 
lowe paid Drayton, Dekker, and Chettle for the play in 
full payment the paltry sum of four pounds and five 
shillings. Collier, in a note, says, "perhaps Davenport 
only revised and altered this piece, which Henslowe 
assigns to Drayton, Dekker, and Chettle." 

But whether Collier's guess is right or not, it is certain 
that Drayton, Dekker, and Chettle wrote a play which as 
late as 1653 went under the name of Shakespeare. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

JOHN WEBSTER FOUND IN THE PLAYS. 

"I shall tell you a pretty tale." 

— Coriolanus, 1,1. 

The men who have been brought by me prominently 
before the reader as participants either in the composition 
or revision of the Shakespeare plays, have been Michael 
Drayton, Thomas Dekker, Henry Porter, Henry Chettle, 
Thomas Heywood, Anthony Monday, and Francis Bacon. 
I have left to others who may have the opportunity and 
the inclination the task of tracing the other original com- 
posers of parts of the plays. Among them will be found, 
I think, Thomas Middleton and John Fletcher. 

But it would be hardly fair to the memory of John 
Webster if I should fail to give him credit, even if very 
briefly, for a share in the composition of some of them. 

Little, very little, is known of Webster, except through 
his works. He is known to have been the author, among 
others, of the following plays: The White Devil, or the 
Tragedy of Vittoria Corombona, the Duchess of Malfy, 
the Devil's Law-case, Appius and Virginia, and the Thra- 
cian Wonder. He also wrote the Induction to Marston's 
Malcontent — a writing which attests his skill in composi- 
tion and his adaptation to the demands of a promiscuous 
audience at the theatre. He was, as I have already shown, 
a participant in the composition of the Fall of Julius 
Caesar, in company with Monday, Drayton, and Middle- 
ton; and the Diary of Henslowe proves that he was the 
author of the Guise, the entry being as follows, at page 202 : 



504 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"Lent unto William Jube, the 3 of Novmbr 1901 to 
bye stamell clothe for a clocke for the Gwisse lis Web- 
ster"; and on the next page Henslowe made an entry that 
he had paid " the littell tayller upon his bell for mackynge 
of sewtes for the Gwesse the some of XX s." 

The times of his birth and his death are unknown. He 
was Clerk of the parish of St. Andrew, Holborn, and a mem- 
ber of the Merchant Tailors' Company. He was married 
on July 25, 1590, at St. Leonard's Church, Shoreditch, to 
Isabel Sutton. It is evident that he was very greatly 
esteemed by his contemporary poets. 

Like Dekker, he paid very little attention to the unities. 
Froude, in the prologue to his play of the Duchess of 
Malfy, says: 

" The rude old bard, if critic laws he knew, 
From a too warm imagination drew, 
And scorning rule should his free soul confine, 
Nor time nor place observ'd in his design." 

It is a pity that no special search has been made by 
scholars for letters or papers of Webster, Drayton, and 
Dekker. They were great poets, whose worth has never 
been properly appreciated. 

Webster appears, I think, in Coriolanus, in the very 
first act and first scene. 

The mutinous citizens armed with staves, clubs, and 
other weapons were inveighing against the patricians 
when Menenius enters and says, " I shall tell you a pretty 
tale"; and thereupon he repeats the fable of the revolt of 
the other members of the body against the belly. As I 
wish the reader to judge for himself, I will quote a small 
part of the fable, so that he may notice the style : 



JOHN WEBSTER FOUND IN THE PLAYS. 505 

" There was a time when all the body's members 
Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it: — ■ 
That only like a gulf it did remain 
I' the midst of the body, idle and inactive, 
Still cupboarding the viands, never bearing 
Like labor with the rest; where the other instruments 
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, 
And mutually participate, did minister 
Unto the appetite and affection common 
Of the whole body. The belly answered, — 

1 Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?" 

Turning now to the second act of Vittoria Corombona, 
Webster causes Francisco De Medicis to interrogate 
Camillo thus: 

" F. de Med. Have you any children? 

Cam. None, my Lord. 

F. de Med. You are the happier: I'll tell you a tale. 

Cam. Pray, my Lord. 

F. de Med. An old tale. 
Upon a time, Phoebus, the god of light, 
Of him, we call the sun, would needs be married; 
The gods gave their consent, and Mercury 
Was sent to voice it to the general world. 
But what a piteous cry there straight arose 
Amongst smiths and felt-makers, brewers and cooks, 
Reapers and butter-women, amongst fishmongers 
And thousand other trades, which are annoyed 
By his excessive heat; 'twas lamentable. 
They come to Jupiter, all in a sweat 
And do forbid the banns." 

Farther on, in act four of the same play, Webster 
indulges in another tale-telling. Flamineo, one of the 
characters, exclaims: 



506 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

"Stay, my lord: I'll tell you a tale. The crocodile 
which lives in the river Nilus, hath a worm breeds in the 
teeth of it, which puts it to extreme anguish. A little 
bird, no bigger than a wren, is barber surgeon to this 
crocodile; flies into the jaws of it, picks out the worm and 
brings present remedy. The fish, glad of ease, but ungrate- 
ful to her that did it, that the bird may not talk largely 
of her abroad for non-payment, closeth her chops, intend- 
ing to swallow her, and so put her to perpetual silence." 

I quote these resemblances to assist the reader of the 
Shakespeare plays in his search for the original composers 
of this play. 

Let us turn now to the tragedy of Macbeth and we find 
in Lady Macbeth's sleeping soliloquy the very style and 
words of Webster. Lady Macbeth enters with a taper, 
and the Doctor who is watching her says : 

"What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her 
hands. 

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her to seem 
thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue 
in this a quarter of an hour. 

Lady Mac. Yet, here's a spot. 

Doct. Hark! She speaks. I will set down what comes 
from her to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. 

Lady Mac. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! one; two; 
why then 'tis time to do't. — Hell is murky." And again 
she says, "Here's the smell of the blood still; all the per- 
fumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, 
oh, oh." 

In Vittoria Corombona, the Moor says, " Look you who 
are yonder," and then the dialogue continues thus: 

"Cornelia. 0, reach me the flowers. 
Moor. Her ladyship's foolish. 



JOHN WEBSTER FOUND IN THE PLAYS. 507 

Woman. Alas, her grief 

Hath turned her child again. 
Cornelia. You're very welcome. 

There's rosemary for you and rue for you; 

Heart's ease for you. I pray make much of it, 

I have left more for myself;" 

and a little later on she says: 

"Will you make me such a fool? 
Here's a white hand, 
Can blood so soon be wash'd out?" 

Here we are reminded of the tragedy of Hamlet as well 
as of Macbeth. Other instances of Webster's handiwork 
in the Shakespeare plays might be cited, but enough has 
been shown to put the student on inquiry. 

Webster, in publishing the tragedy of Vittoria Corom- 
bona, gives the reader the reasons why he took liberties 
with the laws which should govern the composition of a 
•tragedy, and he also presents a very fair idea of the class 
of auditors who frequented the theatre in the early years 
of the Sixteenth Century. 

"In publishing this tragedy," he says, "I do but 
challenge to myself that liberty which other men have 
taken before me; not that I affect praise by it, for nos 
haec novimus esse nihil, only since it was acted in so open 
and black a theatre that it wanted (that which is the only 
grace and setting-out of a tragedy) a full and understand- 
ing auditory; and that since that day, I have noted most 
of the people that come to that play-house resemble those 
ignorant asses who visiting stationers' shops, their use is 
not to inquire for good books, but new books. I present 
it to the general view with this confidence. 



508 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

" Nee rhoncos metues maliqnorum 
Nee scombris tunicas dabis molestas. 

"If it be objected that this is no true dramatic poem, 
I shall easily confess it; willingly and not ignorantly have 
I faulted. For, should a man present to such an auditory 
the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, 
observing all the critical laws, as height of style and gravity 
of person; enrich it with the most sententious chorus, and 
as it were, enliven death, in the passionate and weighty 
nuntius; yet, after all this divine rapture, dura messorum 
ilia, the breath that comes from the incapable multitude 
is able to poison it." 

Theobald properly characterizes him when he says 
that Webster had a strong and impetuous genius. 

Some of my readers may think that I am singular in 
my belief that there is a resemblance between Webster's 
style and that of the writer or one of the writers of the 
Shakespeare plays. I find, however, that I have a little 
support from James Russell Lowell. I say a little support, . 
because when he wrote his "Old English Dramatists" 
he was a believer in Shaksper as the author of the Shake- 
speare plays. Commenting upon Webster's play of 
Appius and Virginia, at page 75 of the above-mentioned 
work, Lowell calls it " a spirited, well-conducted play and 
as good as any other founded on the Roman story, except 
Shakespeare's." A little farther on, at page 76, he says, 
"It has always interested me to find in Webster more 
obvious reminiscences of Shakespeare without conscious 
imitation of him than any other dramatist of the time." 
Another critic, Dye, writing of the same play, says "This 
drama is so remarkable for its simplicity, its deep pathos, 
its unobtrusive beauties, its singleness of plot, and the 



JOHN WEBSTER FOUND IN THE PLAYS. 509 

easy, unimpeded march of its story, that perhaps there are 
readers who will prefer it to any other of our author's 
productions." 

A little reliable and practical knowledge of the man's 
life, his occupation, his family and business relations 
would be very entertaining to the reader of English litera- 
ture. Here was a very learned and excellent poet of whom 
we know very little, and yet the material ought to be 
found somewhere in England, by the careful investigator, 
out of which an interesting biography might be written. 

Such an investigation should not be confined to Web- 
ster's life-history, but it should extend to a patient tracing 
of the lives, letters, and manuscripts of Anthony Monday, 
Michael Drayton, Henry Chettle, Henry Porter, John 
Fletcher, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Middleton. The 
search heretofore has been in the wrong direction. Oldys, 
Malone, Phillips, Collier, and other scholars have been 
deluded by the Shaksper ignis fatuus and have gone astray 
in a vain pursuit. 

With the ignorant Shaksper abandoned, the pathway 
of discovery will be clear. The light of truth is beginning 
to illuminate the road which leads to the true composers 
and revisers of the Shakespeare plays. 



CHAPTER XL. 

A SHORT SUMMING-UP. 

" The end crowns all, 
And that old common arbitrator, Time, 
Will one day end it." 

— Troilus and Cressida, iv, 5. 

In the single issue first presented and discussed in this 
volume, while the evidence is mainly circumstantial, it is, 
in part, direct. The circumstantial evidence rests upon 
presumptions of fact; or, in other words, the fact that 
William Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon did not write the 
plays is an inference from other facts that have been either 
admitted or established by proof. 

The true rule, both of law and reason, is that when 
direct evidence of facts can not be supplied, reasonable 
minds will necessarily form their judgment on circum- 
stances and act upon the probabilities of the proposition 
under consideration. To apply the words of Lord Mans- 
field in the Douglas case, "As mathematical or absolute 
certainty is seldom to be attained in human affairs, reason 
and public utility require that judges and all mankind, 
in forming their opinion of the truth of facts, should be 
regulated by the superior number of probabilities on the 
one side or the other, whether the amount of these proba- 
bilities be expressed in words and arguments or by figures 
and numbers." When, therefore, the circumstantial evi- 
dence is very strong and sufficient and is also supported 
and confirmed by direct evidence, then, to use the language 
of a great law-writer, "human reason can not do other- 



A SHORT SUMMING-UP. 511 

wise than adopt the conclusion to which the proof tends." 
Now, what are the facts which severally raise presump- 
tions in favor of the proposition that Shaksper did not 
write the plays and poems? As heretofore stated and 
shown by unimpeachable facts, it is in evidence that 
Shaksper was never employed to write plays, either singly 
or in collaboration, by Philip Henslowe, the principal 
theatre-manager in London and the man who secured the 
services of the best playwriters of the time for English 
audiences, and Shaksper's name is not even mentioned in 
the Diary kept by the manager, as it certainly would have 
been had Shaksper written plays for the theater. There is 
no evidence, and none can be adduced, that Shaksper was 
ever employed by any one to write plays. 

It is also in evidence that he commended no contempo- 
rary, although it was the custom of the poets and drama- 
tists of his time to furnish commendatory and compli- 
mentary lines to accompany the books of brother poets, 
and during his lifetime no book was issued in his name, 
either with or without his authorization, in which he was 
commended by any one, either in prose or poetry. 

It is also in evidence that he left no letters, no brief 
note, no manuscript, no fragment even of a writing of any 
kind except certain signatures wretchedly written to 
certain legal documents, to indicate that he was either a 
scholar or a person habituated to writing. In connection 
with this remarkable circumstance is the further fact that 
for nearly three centuries the most minute and exhaustive 
search has been made by indefatigable admirers of the 
supposed author in every nook and cranny of England to 
find some writing in aid of the Shaksper claim, but all in 
vain. 



512 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

It is also in evidence that Shaksper had no library. 
Even his great advocate, Halliwell-Phillips, admits that he 
possessed no library. And what is a workman worth 
without the tools of his trade? What is a scholar good 
for without books, especially when he undertakes to make 
all knowledge his province? 

It is also in evidence that William Shaksper gave his 
children no education whatever. His daughters were 
ignorant women who were suffered by him to grow up 
from childhood in ignorance. This fact is clearly and 
conclusively established. It is hard, yes, improbable — I 
should rather say, impossible — to believe that the man who 
invented a Portia, a Viola, and a Rosalind, would have 
failed to educate his own children. Yet the Shaksper 
worshiper must so believe. 

And then there is the uncontradicted evidence that 
Shaksper was utterly indifferent to literary proprieties. 
Although books were issued which he did not and could 
not write, yet he neither claimed nor disclaimed the 
authorship, but stood mute. If he knew that books not 
written by him were so published, he knowingly permitted 
a fraud to be practiced, and if he did not know it, his 
ignorance would suffice to excuse him. In such a case the 
presumption would be that the indifference could properly 
be charged to ignorance. 

Taken now in connection with what we know of Shak- 
sper's real and traditional life, these facts, severally and 
jointly, must lead all reasonable and unprejudiced minds 
to believe in the truth of my proposition that William 
Shaksper of Stratford-on-Avon did not write the plays and 
poems which now are published and circulated under a 
name like his. 



A SHORT SUMMING-UP. 513 

But when, allied to all these facts and the presumptions 
derived therefrom, there is the clear, positive, and direct 
evidence that Shaksper could not write, the proposition 
of his inability to compose the plays and poems is unan- 
swerable. When I say that he could not write, I may, 
without impairing the force of my proposition, so modify 
the assertion as to declare that he could not write with 
that facility which was absolutely required of the com- 
poser of the plays and poems. 

Reader, you have before you the facsimiles of his sig- 
natures, the only writings of this man ever found, and if 
you will carefully study these facsimiles, you must, if 
disinterested, conclude with me that the maker of them 
was an uneducated man, hardly able to write his name. 

In summing up as to the second proposition, namely, 
as to who wrote the poems and plays, the reader will bear 
in mind that I have tried to state facts only, and while 
giving my own opinion, have left him to form his own 
opinion on the facts as to authorship. 

With Shaksper entirely eliminated, the path of dis- 
covery is open to every disinterested searcher, and especial- 
ly to those who are residents of England, where there are 
greater opportunities for search than elsewhere, although I 
believe that German scholars are also very careful, pains- 
taking, and scrutinizing searchers after facts in literature. 
They are preeminently specialists. 

In forming the opinion that Francis Bacon was the 
author of the Venus and Adonis, I was compelled thereto 
by reason of the facts as they appeared to me. Believing 
as I do that Pope's familiar lines are exactly descriptive 
of the wise and learned Bacon, I would have much pre- 
ferred as author of the poem the sly, waggish, and gifted 



514 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

Drayton, who was a fellow-countryman of Shaksper, but 
the peculiarities in the style of the poem irresistibly led 
to Bacon. I was tempted to believe that the Return from 
Parnassus identified Dekker as the man who gave Horace 
the purge which made him bewray his credit, and as there- 
fore the man who was commonly called and known as 
Shake-speare, but the author of that drama may have 
erred, and I preferred to be guided as to my opinion by 
the tests of style. 

In the plays which I have examined and hereinbefore 
enumerated I am of the opinion, upon the facts, that 
Michael Drayton, Thomas Dekker, Anthony Monday, 
Henry Chettle, Thomas Heywood, John Webster, Thomas 
Middleton, and Henry Porter were participants in their 
original composition. That these plays, or some of them, 
were not originated by but were polished and reconstructed 
by Francis Bacon is a conclusion which also forces itself 
upon my mind, because first, I believe that Bacon, if he 
originated the plays which I have examined and com- 
mented upon, would have observed the unities; and 
secondly, because his philosophical views and his peculiar- 
ities are interwoven in some of them. The reader has the 
facts before him on which to form his own conclusion. 

There is one play which I have not adverted to, neither 
closely examined, but which bears so striking a resem- 
blance to that of Like quits Like, or Measure for Measure, 
that I think it should be credited, at least as an original 
composition, to Heywood and Chettle. I allude to All's 
Well that Ends Well. It is founded on the basis or plot of 
substitution. In Measure for Measure, Mariana is sub- 
stituted for Isabella; and in All's Well that Ends Well, 
Helena is substituted for Diana Capilet. 



A SHORT SUMMING-UP. 515 

I have only worked in a small part of the field of the 
plays, but I have worked chiefly in that part of them 
mentioned by old Meres and where there was evidence of 
collaboration, so that in the future consideration of such 
masterpieces as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, the Merchant 
of Venice, the Tempest, and the other great plays not 
herein considered, the task for the searching student will 
be more light and easy. 

This imperfect study has been the work of hours stolen 
from active business. At such times it has been a very 
great source of pleasure to me to have been even for a few 
hours in company with the neglected poets and dramatists 
of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras whom I have 
named, many of whom are absolutely unknown to the 
mass of readers of English history and literature. Hooper 
remarks that Goldsmith in his Citizen of the World makes 
the Chinese philosopher visit Westminster Abbey. "As 
we walked along to a particular part of the Temple, 'There,' 
says the guide, pointing with his finger, ' that is the Poets' 
Corner; there you see the monuments of Shakespeare, 
Milton, Prior, and Drayton.' ' Drayton,' I replied, ' I never 
heard of him before, but I have been told of one Pope, 
is he there?'" 

And yet to my mind the pilgrim to Warwickshire 
would come much nearer to paying respect to one of those 
who formed and made up the real Shakespeare by visiting 
Hartshill and the old Grammar School at Atherstone than 
by worshiping at the false shrine set up for pilgrims at 
Stratford-on-Avon. I said that I had been with these 
worthies in those stolen hours. In utilizing those hours I 
have realized the truth and force of what Robert Elsmere 
said, when in quoting his Mentor Gray's advice, especially 



516 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

as to setting up a literary subject, he remarked that " Half 
the day you will be king of the world: the other half be 
the slave of something which will take you out of your 
world into the general world." Yes, I have been with 
the chivalrous Sidney in his philosophical and meta- 
physical discussions with Bruno and when he was writing 
his stern and stinging admonition to the love-sick Eliza- 
beth. I have been with Drayton at Coventry when he 
visited the house on Mich Parke Street where his fair 
enchantress, his loved Idea, was born and reared; with 
him in the Peake when he composed his odes; with him 
in his search at Edinburgh for an honest publisher; with 
him in his ambitious and unsuccessful striving for prefer- 
ment from the disappointing James, and with him in his 
cosy corner with the friendly Reynolds when they dis- 
cussed the men and events of their generation. I have 
been with poor Henry Chettle when he was the slave of 
Henslowe, borrowing a little money from him as necessity 
urged, and then hastily turning out plays for the fre- 
quenters of the theatre to be credited on account. I have 
been with the prose Shakespeare, Thomas Hey wood, when 
he bound himself under a penalty of forty pounds as a 
covenant servant to Philip Henslowe not to play anywhere 
except in Henslowe's theatre for two years, and I have been 
with him when he denounced the pedagogue Austin for 
publishing as his own Hey wood's translations from Ovid. 
I have been with Dekker in his fierce poetical encounter 
with and discomfiture of the critical Jonson; with him in 
the prison of the King's Bench when he wrote letters of 
recommendation to the founder of Dulwich College, with a 
short gratulatory poem enclosed; and I have been with 
him in his fierce denunciation and classification of the 



A SHORT SUMMING-UP. 517 

rascals who infested London and preyed upon the innocent 
and unwary. I have been with rare Ben when for forty 
shillings paid by Henslowe he wrote those magnificent 
additions to the Spanish Tragedy, which, in my judg- 
ment, are remarkably like and certainly equal in power 
and beauty to the very best parts of Hamlet. 

I have been with Francis Bacon when in the ardor and 
sincerity of his youth he inveighed in the House of Com- 
mons against an unjust subsidy, to the ruin of his chances 
for preferment at the hands of Cecil and to the disgust of 
the despotic Elizabeth; and I have been with him when, 
as Lord Chancellor, he declared to the House of Lords 
that he did plainly and ingenuously confess that he was 
guilty of corruption by the acceptance of many bribes, 
sorrowfully stating when asked if he stood by his con- 
fession, "My Lords, it is my act, my hand, my heart; I 
beseech your lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." 

And in these hours I gained from my stolen interviews 
with these poet worthies a knowledge of the personal 
appearance of the Virgin Queen, such as she was when 
Dekker in old Fortunatus nattered her to her face by 
calling her Gloriana, and the Eliza whose land was Ely- 
sium. Although the following description is not of her 
attire, but of her person, it will give the reader an accurate 
idea of the form and features of Elizabeth. I get it from 
John Hayward, and he had good reason to know how the 
Queen looked: 

"She was," he says, "a lady upon whom nature had 
bestowed, and well placed many of her fairest favors; 
of stature mean, slender, straight, and admirably com- 
posed; of such state in her carriage, as every motion of 
her seemed to bear majesty; her hair was inclined to pale 



518 THE SHAKESPEARE TITLE. 

yellow; her forehead large and fair, a seeming set for 
princely grace; her eyes lively and sweet, but short-sighted; 
her nose somewhat rising in the midst; the whole com- 
pass of her countenance somewhat long, but yet of admira- 
ble beauty." 

It seems that her sister Mary also was short-sighted, so 
that she could not read or do anything else without placing 
her eyes quite close to the object. 

These actor-players and writers to whom I shall now 
say farewell — all of them were cheerful, jolly, companion- 
able fellows. They made their mark in English literature. 
It is a great pity that more is not known of them, and 
especially of Drayton, Dekker, Heywood, and Webster, 
who were valuable contributors to the literary glory of 
Great Britain. 



INDEX. 



Aetion, allusion to, 107. 

Alleyn, Edmund, joint owner with Henslowe of four theatres, 28; 

does not mention Shaksper, 46. 
Arden, forest of, Drayton born near, 324. 

Areopagus Club, Dyer, Greville, Sidney, and Spenser members, 213. 
Aston, Sir Walter, helper and patron of Drayton, 113. 
Atherstone, Drayton educated in grammar school of, 324. 
Aubrey says Drayton's father was a butcher, 324. 
Author of " Is it Shakespeare" in error as to maker of Sonnets, 221. 
Authors, concealment of their names, 12. 



Bacon and Shakespeare, by William Henry Smith, 9. 

Bacon, Delia, a writer on the Baconian philosophy in the plays, 9. 

Bacon, Francis, did not write the Sonnets, 220; as a poet, 284; called 
himself a concealed poet, 284; Taine's eulogy of him, 284; assisted 
in the tragedy of the Misfortunes of Arthur, 285; composed Con- 
ference of Pleasure, 285; specimens of his prose, 286; his part in 
Christmas Revels at Gray's Inn, 288; his masque of the Indian 
Prince, 289; specimens of his poetry, 290; what Ben Jonson said 
of him, 296; what Sir Tobie Matthew said of him, 297; Osborne's 
opinion of him, 298; his habit as to dedications, 349; what he 
said about dedications, 352; his phrases compared with phrases 
in the dedications of the poems, 352; the reviser of Troilus and 
Cressida, 377; Taming of the Shrew polished by him, 379; his 
philosophical precepts in Measure for Measure, 392; what he said 
about the playing of Richard the Second, 406; not the author of 
that play, 407; the Comedy of Errors probably revised by him, 
477; presumption as to Hamlet, 485; as to traces of him in 
Winter's Tale, 490. 

Baldness, Dekker's poetical praise of, 307. 

Barnfield, Richard, eulogizes Drayton, 112; what he said of Shake- 
speare, 196. 

Bartholomew Fair, Jonson's reference to Titus Andromcus and 
Pericles, 403. 

Beaumont, Francis, a collaborator, 27; tested as to authorship of 
Venus and Adonis, 257. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, as to intellectual difference in men, 205. 

Beroune, meant for Love's Labor's Lost in Henslowe's Diary, 43; 
Verplanck's note as to, 44. 

Bible, author of plays familiar with, 71. 

Blackstone, Sir William, what he said of the Two Gentlemen of 
Verona, 459. . 

Boston Library, as to copy of North's Plutarch, 79; librarians 
opinion as to handwriting, 79. 

Braithwaite, Richard, as to Heywood, 25. 




520 



INDEX. 



Bkistol Tragedy, John Day sole composer of, 37. 

British Museum, reference to Drayton in, 346. 

Brome, Richard, a collaborator, 27. 

Brooks, Phillips, as to fathers of the church, 3. 

Brown, Armitage, his arrangement of the Sonnets, 216. 

Brown, Henry, what he said of the Sonnets, 229. 

Bruno, Giordano, his acquaintance with Sidney, 244. 

Buller, as to Dekker's revision, 36. 

Bunyan, John, a great writer, but not a great scholar, 13. 

Burns, Robert, a good poet, but not a learned scholar, 13. 

Burr, William H., called attention to Shaksper's wretched writing, 6; 

offered as an expert, 20; criticises Shaksper's signatures, 89. 
Burton, Robert, as to poverty of poets, 37. 
Business man, word limit of, 175. 



Cesar's Fall, probably same as Julius Caesar, 31; written by Dray- 
ton. Monday, Webster, and Middleton, 31; entry in Henslowe's 
Diary as to, 31. 

Cardinal Wolsey, Henry Chettle first began the play, 453. 

Chalmers, his comments, 7. 

Chambers, what he said about Shaksper and the Sonnets, 249. 

Chapman, George, a collaborator, 27; style tested as to the author- 
ship of Venus and Adonis, 257; finished Marlowe's Hero and 
Leander, 257. v 

Characteristics of writers shown and explained, 205. 

Chaucer, as to scholars, 61. 

Chettle, Henry, a collaborator, 27; wrote a part of Troilus and 
Cressida, 30; his apology for Greene, 120; a competent drama- 
tist, as shown by Henslowe's Diary, 375; names of plays written 
by, 375; a collaborator with Hey wood in Measure for Measure, 
386; what Meres said of him, 388; Dekker's allusion to him in 
his dream, 389; employed to write the play of Cardinal Wolsey, 
453. 

Choate, Rufus, facsimile of autograph letter, 84. 

Christmas Revels at Gray's Inn, participated in by Francis Bacon, 
288. 

Circumstantial Evidence, its value, 510. 

Clarke, Mary Cowden, as to the learning of author of Venus and 
Adonis, 188. 

Clifford, in Gloucestershire, Drayton's sojourn there, 113. 

Coat of Arms, fraud in securing it for Shaksper's father, 100. 

Collaborators, plays in Shaksper's time chiefly written by, 27; sold 
ownership of their plays, 34. 

Collier, J. Payne, editor of Henslowe's Diary, 32; his note as to 
Titus Andronicus, 39; as to King Lear, 41; as to Henry the 
Fifth, 41; as to Henry the Sixth, 42; as to the Taming of a 
Shrew, 42; as to Pleasant Willy, 103; his erroneous assertion as 
to the meaning of Daniel's letter, 109; his misinterpretation of the 
word "Shakescene," 117; his note about Measure for Measure, 387 ; 
as to the play of Julius Csesar, 415; as to Henry the Sixth, 422. 



INDEX. 521 

Collins, Francis, writer of Shaksper's will, 60. 

Comedy of Errors, anachronisms and incongruities in, 473; Dekker's 
frequent allusions to the play, 474; his disregard of the unities 
noticed, 474; Meres' mention of, 474; apparently a work of col- 
laboration, 474; Dekker's jail life referred to, 476; his use of law 
terms, 476; Henry Porter probably a collaborator, 476; his use 
of proverbs, 476; the doggerel lines of the play, 476; the play 
probably revised by Bacon, 477. 

Concealed Poet, Bacon's admission to Davies, 284. 

Conference of Pleasure, Bacon's participation in, 285. 

Cooke, Surgeon, his bargain with Susanna Hall, 67. 

Craik, George L., his allusion to Drayton, 416. 

Crispinus, nickname applied by Jonson to Dekker, 321. 

Cymbeline, Drayton and Dekker traced in it, 491. 



Daniel, Samuel, a collaborator, 27; letter to Egerton, 110; it does 
not refer to Shaksper, 110; the letter refers to Drayton, 113. 

Dark-eyed Lady of the sonnets refers to Penelope Devereux, 245. 

Daughters of Shaksper could not write, 66. 

Davies, Rev. Richard, said that Shaksper died a Papist, 172. 

Davies, Sir John, called Drayton the poet Decius, 416. 

Davison's Poetical Rhapsodies, as to Pleasant Willy, 105. 

Day, John, a collaborator, 27; sole composer of the Bristol Tragedy. 37. 

Decius, Drayton so called by Sir John Davies, 416. 

Dedications, unreliability of, 348; in Shaksper's time, 349; pub- 
lishers often wrote them, 349; examples cited, 349; what Nash 
and Bacon said, 349; Wither's remarks, 349; Dekker's habit as 
to, 351 ; Drayton's habit as to, 351 ; Bacon's habit as to, 352. 

Dekker, Thomas, eulogized by Whipple, 2; his definition of a poet, 15; 
a collaborator, 27; revised Sir John Oldcastle, 29; wrote with 
Henry Chettle Troilus and Cressida, 30; his praise of hair, 306; 
his counter-praise of baldness, 307; extract from Satiro-mastix, 
308; satirized by Ben Jonson, 315; Groshart's eulogy of him, 375; 
his dream supplemented, 389; traced in Titus Andronicus, 402; 
a part composer of Pericles, 404; of Henry the Sixth, 441; of 
Richard the Third, 449; and King John, 451; aided in writing 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 459; and the Falstaff Plays, 463; his 
characteristics, 476; had a hand in the Winter's Tale, 488. 

De Peyster, J. Watts, his pamphlet as to the Shakespeare Myth, 6; 
his comments on Hart's statement as to Shaksper, 8. 

De Stael, Madame, her praise of Von Schlegel's ability and accur- 
acy, 28. 

Desdemona, allusion to, 68. 

Devereux, Penelope, dark-eyed lady of the sonnets, 233; the Stella 
of Sidney, 234; wife of Lord Rich and sister of Essex, 247. 

Dialect, Drayton familiar with Warwickshireisms, 346; Morgan's 
study of, 346. 

Discoveries, what Jonson said in his, 197. 



522 INDEX. 

D'Israeli, his eulogy of Michael Drayton, 345. 

Donnelly, Ignatius, a strenuous doubter, 10; as to library, 64. 

Drayton, Michael, a collaborator, 27; wrote part of Oldcastle, 29; 
wrote Csesar's Fall in collaboration, 31; commended contempo- 
raries, 48; was commended by contemporaries, 49; was probably 
Aetion, 107; eulogized by Tofte, 107; referred to in Daniel's 
letter to Egerton, 111; described as of civil demeanor, 130; 
highly praised by Meres, 131; what he said of Shakespeare, 195; 
what he wrote of Sidney, 232; probably alluded to by Jonson as 
poet-ape, 322; summary of his life and work, 324; his habit as to 
dedications, 350; traced in Andronicus, 399; traced in Pericles, 
405; chief composer of Richard the Second, 408; description of 
his style, 412; resemblance of style to parts of Julius Caesar, 415; 
wrong use of word "exorcist," 420; part composer of Henry the 
Sixth, 424; of Richard the Third, 445; of King John, 450; of the 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, 460; of the Falstaff plays, 466; as to 
Hamlet, 480; as to Winter's Tale, 487. 

Drummond, conversations with Jonson, 197. 

Dryden, John, as to Troilus and Cressida, 374. 

Dulwich College, Henslowe's Diary discovered there, 32. 

Dyer, Sir Edmund, member of Areopagus Club, 213; the man in 
hue, 234; friend of Sidney, 236; the Sonnets addressed to, 236. 

E 

Eastward Hoe, written by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, 32. 
Edward the Third, profusion of similes in, 362; Halliwell-Phillips' 

allusion to, 366. 
Edwards, William H., his "Shaksper not Shakespeare," 11; what 

he says about Shaksper's handwriting, 92. 
Egerton, Sir Thomas, Daniel's letter to, 109. 
Emerson, as to Shaksper's contemporaries, 54. 
English Traveler, what Hey wood said in it as to plays, 31. 
Essex Conspiracy, reference to Richard the Second, 406. 
Eth, frequent use of as termination in the poems, 355. 
Exorcist, a word wrongly used, 420. 
Experts in Handwriting, as to signatures, 74. 



Facsimiles of Shaksper's handwriting set out, 75; of Greeley's 

letter, 82; of Choate's letter, 84; of McDonald's letter, 87. 
Falstaff Plays, the name " Falstaff" substituted for " Oldcastle," 461. 
Farmer, Richard, the first doubter, 5; asserted that Shaksper was 

not learned, 6; that he was no extraordinary actor, 125. 
Fitton, Mrs. Mary, Harrison's wild conjecture as to acquaintance 

with Shaksper, 133. 
Fleay, Frederic G., his conjectures, 145; as to Shaksper's padded 

biographies, 153. 
Fletcher, John, a collaborator, 27; as to his never blotting papers, 91. 
Fortunatus, extract from, 301. 
Furness, as to how plays were written, 32. 



INDEX. 523 



G 



Goodere, Sir Henry, patron of Drayton, 113. 

Greeley, Horace, as to penmanship, 81; facsimile of his letter, 82; 

his writing considered, 83. 
Greene, Robert, his Groat's-worth of Wit, 116. 
Greville, Sir Fulke, member of Areopagus Club, 213; friend of 

Sidney, 234; pun on his name, 235; as to booksellers, 250. 
Groat's-worth of Wit, written by Greene, 119; does not apply to 

Marlowe or Peele, 122. 
Groshart, his eulogy of Dekker, 375. 
Gunther has copy of folio, 79. 



Hall, Susanna, uneducated daughter of Shaksper, 66; her conver- 
sation with Surgeon Cooke. 67; wife of Dr. Hall, 67. 

Hallam rejects Titus Andronicus, 398. 

Halliwell-Phillips admits that Shaksper had no library, 60; as to 
Judith's ignorance, 66; as to Shaksper's indifference to literary 
proprieties, 95; as to the coat-of-arms fraud, 100; says that 
Shaksper's father was a Roman Catholic, 171. 

Hamlet, when the play appeared, 478; the Revenge of Hamlet alluded 
to, 479; words of Gabriel Harvey, 479; Dekker's allusions to, 479; 
presumptions in favor of Bacon's authorship, 479; Drayton's 
hand in, 480; test examples, 480; Hamlet's soliloquy in original 
play, 484; Dekker's hand in the play, 484. 

Hart, Joseph C, first public denier of Shaksper's title, 6; what he 
said of Shaksper, 6. 

Hartshill, Drayton's birthplace, 324. 

Harvey, Gabriel, corresponding member of the Areopagus Club, 213; 
as to Spenser's lost comedies, 213; what he wrote as to Hamlet, 479. 

Hathaway, Agnes, child of Richard Hathaway, 135. 

Hathaway, Richard, a collaborator, 27; wrote part of Oldcastle, 29. 

Haughton, William, a collaborator, 27. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, as to Shaksper, 15. 

Hayward, John, his bequest to his wife, 59. 

Heminge and Condell, as to no blot on Shaksper's papers, 90; omitted 
Pericles, 403. 

Henry the Fourth, manuscript of, 26; composed in part by Drayton 
and Dekker, 462. 

Henry the Fifth, referred to in Henslowe's Diary, 41 ; composed in 
part by Drayton and Dekker, 462. 

Henry the Sixth, referred to in Henslowe's Diary, 42; Collier's 
reference to, 422; its versification, 424; Drayton's connection 
with it, 424; phrases cited, 425; Monday traced in it, 441; Dekker 
traced in it, 441. 

Henry the Eighth, remarks of commentators, 452; what Henslowe's 
Diary shows, 452; peculiarities of versification, 454; Speclding's 
opinion as to collaborated authorship, 456; Morgan's impartial 
investigation, 456; Warwickshire words in, 456; Drayton, how 
identified in, 457. 



524 INDEX. 

Henslowe, Philip, his Diary shows collaboration, 28; joint owner 
with Alleyn of four theatres, 28; manager of theatres in Shaksper's 
time, 28; his wretched writing, 28; list of plays he bought, 34; 
how he bought them, 35; how he paid revisers, 35. 

Henslowe's Diary, shows dramatic collaboration, 28; its mention of 
Troilus and Cressida, 30; of Csesar's Fall, 31; Diary discovered at 
Dulwich College, 32; Shaksper not mentioned in it, 33; Titus 
Andronicus, how noted in it, 39; its reference to King Lear, 40; 
Henry the Fifth noted in it, 41; Henry the Sixth and Taming of 
the Shrew referred to in it, 42; Love's Labor's Lost called 
"Beroune," 43. 

Hero and Leander, extract from, 257. 

Heywood, Thomas, a prolific dramatist, 2; his lives of the poets 
unpublished, 25; a frequent collaborator, 31; his remarks in 
English Traveler, 31 ; commended by brother poets, 48 ; what he 
said of Shake-speare, 194; collaborator with Chettle in Measure 
for Measure, 386; what Charles Lamb said of him, 388; his 
reference to Richard the Third. 445. 

"Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells," reference to, 25. 

Holmes, Dr., as to worship of false gods, 4. 

Hooper, Richard, incomplete edition of Drayton's works, 347. 



Illiteracy of Shaksper shown by his writing, 73. 

Ireland, Samuel, his lies in aid of the Shaksper fraud, 57. 

Is it Shakespeare? as to the complete man, 14; as to the Sonnets, 221. 



Jealous Comedy may have been Winter's Tale, 486. 

Johannes Factotum, name applies to Dekker, 124; also to Mon- 
day, 127. 

John a Kent, reference to, 26. 

Johnson, Samuel, rejects Titus Andronicus, 398. 

Jonson, Ben, occasionally collaborated, 27; wrote Eastward Hoe 
with Marston and Chapman, 32; collaborated in Sejanus, 32; 
commended contemporaries, 49; eulogy of Francis Bacon, 296; 
his Poetaster, 315; called Pericles a mouldy tale, 403; his fling 
at the writer of Winter's Tale, 488. 

Julius Caesar, Collier's opinion as to date, 415; his reference to 
Drayton's Barons' Wars, 415; Craik's reference, 416; Drayton's 
revision, 416; Drayton's hand shown in, 416; colloquy between 
Brutus and Portia, 420; wrong use of "exorcist," 420. 

Junius, not known from author's statement, 12. 

Jusserand, his rules as to Sidney's style, 240. 



INDEX. 525 



K 



Kemp, William, dedication to Anne Fitton, 225. 

King James neglected Drayton, 342; eulogized in Henry the Eighth, 

King John, reference to old play, 450; Farmer's opinion as to, 450; 

its authors hated Roman Catholicism, 450; expressions of Drayton 

and Dekker found in it, 451. 
King Lear, referred to in Henslowe's Diary, 40. 
Kinsayder, the nickname of John Marston, 342. 
Kyd, Thomas, his dedication of Cornelia, 349. 



Laborer, word limit of a common, 175. 

Lady Rich, the Stella of Sidney, 233. 

Lamb, Charles, as to Dekker's poetic talent, 309; what he said of 
Heywood, 388. 

Lardner, as to Shaksper, 7. 

Learned Writers must be students, 14; poetical authorities as to 
learning, 21; prose authorities as to, 22; scriptural authorities 
as to, 24. 

Lee, Sidney, as to collaboration, 36. 

Lies in aid of Shaksper, the Southampton present, 132; the King 
James' letter, 132; that Shaksper was a schoolmaster and lawyer's 
clerk, 133; that he had a liason with Mrs. Fitton, 134; that he 
married Richard Hathaway's daughter, 134; that he wrote plays 
for Henslowe, 135; the Queen's glove story, 136; that he wrote 
the John Jordan poetry, 137. 

Like quits Like, Henslowe's probable designation of Measure for 
Measure, 386. 

Lintot, Bernard, assertion as to King James' letter, 132. 

Lives of all the Poets, Heywood's, 25. 

Lodge, Dr., alludes to Hamlet, 479. 

Logical Division of the Shakespeare question, 1 1 . 

London Prodigal, not written by Shaksper, 99; not disclaimed by 
Shaksper, 100. 

Love's Labor's Lost, referred to in Diary, 43; when acted at Hens- 
lowe's theatre, 43; called Beroune in the Diary, 43. 

M 

Madden, Sir Frederic, notice of John a Kent, 26; analysis of the 
Shaksper signatures, 76. 

Malone, Edmund, as to Pericles, 404; as to Henry the Sixth, 423; 
as to Henry the Eighth, 452. 

Mankind, credulity of, 4. 

Mansfield, Lord, as to circumstantial evidence, 510. 

Marlowe, Christopher, a collaborator in plavwriting, 27. 

Marston, John, a collaborator, 27; tested as to authorship of Venus 
and Adonis, 258; his dedication to Jonson, 322; called Kin- 
sayder, 342. 



526 INDEX. 

Masque of the Indian Prince, 289. 

Massey, Gerald, his hypothesis as to the Sonnets, 228. 

Matilda, Drayton's poem of, 327; his omission of stanza referring to 
Lucrece, 343. 

Matthew, Sir Tobie, calls Bacon a literary monster, 297. 

McDonald, Joseph E., facsimile of his signature, 87. 

Measure for Measure, originally composed by Heywood and Chettle, 
386; difference from other plays, 387; revised to natter King 
James, 394; what Halliwell-Phillips says of it, 394. 

Meres, Francis, calls Monday the best plotter, 2; eulogizes Drayton 
in his Palladis Tamia, 131; what he said of Shakespeare, 193; 
refers to Richard the Second, 408. 

Merrick, Sir Gilly, order to players, 407. 

Merry Devil of Edmonton, ascribed to Shaksper by Von Schlegel, 29 ; 
attributed to Michael Drayton, 29. 

Merry Wives of Windsor, composed in part by Drayton and Dekker, 
470; who revised it? 473. 

Middleton, Thomas, a collaborator, 27; connected in the Diary with 
Csesar's Fall, 31 ; tested as to authorship of Venus and Adonis, 260. 

Misfortunes of Arthur, Bacon a collaborator in it, 285. 

Monday, Anthony, "our best plotter," 2; his John a Kent and John 
a Comber, 26; a collaborator, 27; collaborated in Sir John Old- 
castle, 29; connected with Csesar's Fall, 31; was a Johannes 
Factotum, 127; had "a tiger's heart," 127; called himself " Lazarus 
Piot," 127; found in Henry the Sixth, 441. 

Montaigne of Florio, facsimile of the signature in the, 79. 

Morgan, Appleton, summons to scholars in his Myth, 10; as to 
Shaksper's learning, 62 ; as to Shaksper's wealth and his daughters' 
ignorance, 69; as to Aetion, 107; as to borrowing from Holin- 
shed, 144; as to characteristics of the plays, 190; as to the name 
"Shakespeare," 202; shows that plays are packed with War- 
wickshireisms, 346; that the Venus and Adonis is free from 
them, 369; as to Shaksper's indifference, 373; as to the Bacon 
claim to authorship of Richard the Second, 407; as to Henry 
the Eighth, 456; as to dialect, 460. 

Mother Redcap, a play bought by Henslowe, 35. 

Muses' Elysium, extracts from Drayton's, 333. 

N 

Nash, Thomas, a collaborator, 27; denounces publishers, 349; his 

remarks as to Hamlet, 478. 
North's Plutarch, copy in Boston Library, 79. 
Nymphidia, extracts from, 329. 



O'Connor, William D., as to the Sonnets, 219. 

Oldcastle, Sir John, Von Schlegel as to, 28; written by Drayton 

and others, 29; revised by Dekker, 29; authorship not disclaimed 

by Shaksper, 97. 
Osborne, as to Francis Bacon, 298. 



INDEX. 527 



Pandosto, Winter's Tale copied from, 486. 

Passionate Pilgrim, not written nor claimed by Shaksper, 96. 

Pericles, how treated by commentators, 403; not in Folio of 1623, 403; 

not assigned to Shakespeare until 1664, 403; Dekker and Drayton 

traced in it, 404. 
Philisides, Sidney was so called, 233. 
Pilgrim's Progress referred to, 13. 
Piot, Lazarus, name used by Anthony Monday, 127. 
Platt-Morgan debate, 202, 346. 
Plays, always called Shakespeare plays, 1; as to friendship, 51; as 

to letters, 57; as to libraries, 61; as to education, 68; written by 

Protestants, 160; contain over 21,000 words, 175. 
Playwriters, list of, 204. 
Pleasant Willy refers to Sidney, 102. 
Poet-ape, to whom applied, 320. 
Poetaster, Ben Jonson's play acted in 1600, 315. 
Pope, Alexander, as to letters, 57; as to Pericles, 403. 
Porter, Henry, a collaborator, 27; as to Comedy of Errors, 476. 
Portia, allusion to, 68. 

Protestants, the writers of the plays were, 160. 
Puritan, Shakespeare's name on title page, 100. 

a 

Queen Elizabeth, the glove lie, 136; description of, 517. 
Quiney, Richard, his letter to Shaksper, 56. 
Quiney, Thomas, husband of Judith Shaksper, 152. 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, as to Sonnets, 219. 

Rankins, William, a collaborator, 27. 

Reed, Edwin, as to learning of author of Venus and Adonis, 188. 

Return from Parnassus, poets judged in, 310. 

Richard Crookback, Henslowe paid Ben Jonson for, 444. 

Richard the Second, how connected with Essex Conspiracy, 406; 
what Bacon said about it, 406; mentioned by Meres, 408; Dray- 
ton the principal composer, 408. 

Richard the Third, facts as to, 444; additions made in 1623, 449. 

Rising of Cardinal Wolsey, its composers, 453; its expensive 
introduction, 453. 

Roman Catholicism, hatred of it by the playwriters, 171. 

Romance of Yachting, Shaksper fraud first exposed in, 6. 

Rowe, altered Beroune into Biron, 44; his life of Shaksper, 151. 

Rowland, the gentle shepherd, name applied to Drayton, 107. 

Rowley, Samuel, a collaborator, 27. 



528 INDEX. 

s 

Satiro-mastix, extracts from, 306. 

Scott, Sir Walter, concealed authorship of Waverley, 12; reference 
to mass, 165. 

Scottowe, Augustine, as to Shaksper's will, 58; as to the signatures 
thereto, 93. 

Sejanus, the work of collaborators, 32. 

Shake-scene, in Greene's book, 123. 

Shake-speare Sonnets, never claimed by Shaksper, 214; reputed 
authors of, 216; true rule as to construction, 229. 

Shakespearean Myth, by Appleton Morgan, 10. 

Shaksper, John, fraud as to coat of arms, 100; presented as a re- 
cusant, 171; what Phillips says as to his religious belief, 172. 

Shaksper, Judith, daughter of William Shaksper, 66; married to 
Thomas Quiney, 152; unable to write her own name, 152. 

Shaksper, William, his character and occupation no bar to poetical 
ability, 3; accepted by many in the belief that he had super- 
natural powers, 17; facsimiles of his signature from Malone's 
Inquiry, 18; poetical authorities as to learning, 21; prose author- 
ities as to learning, 22; scriptural authorities as to learning, 24; 
plays written by collaboration in his time, 30; his name not in 
Henslowe's Diary, 39; commended no contemporary, 49; de- 
fended as indifferent to praise or blame, 50; probably had Hens- 
lowe's business capacity, 50; criticised no one, 52; praised no 
one, 52; left no letters, 55; had no library, 59; gave his children 
no education, 67; never mentioned plays, 72; his poor hand- 
writing shows his illiteracy, 73; his five signatures, 74; utterly 
indifferent to literary proprieties, 94; did not disclaim authorship 
of the Passionate Pilgrim, 96; nor of Sir John Oldcastle, 98; nor 
of the London Prodigal, 99; nor of the Widow of Watling Street, 
100; nor of the Yorkshire Tragedy, 100; guilty of deception as 
to coat of arms, 100; was not Pleasant Willy, 103; was not 
Aetion, 107; not referred to in Daniel's letter to Egerton, 109; 
his real life, 151; Ward's account of his death, 157; was a papist 
according to Davies, 171; could not have written the plays, 174; 
what is said as to his learning, 186. 

Shirley, Anthony, not author of Shakespeare Sonnets, 222. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, was "Pleasant Willy," 105; president of Areo- 
pagus Club, 213; called "Philisides," 232; wrote Shakespeare 
Sonnets, 233; how identified, 234; letter to Queen, 237; Jusse- 
rand's rules, 240; conversations with Bruno, 244; eulogy of, 251. 

Similes, use of in the poems, 359. 

Sir Piers of Exton, reference to, 413. 

Skottowe, as to Shaksper's will, 58. 

Slater, Martin, a collaborator, 27. 

Smith, William Henry, his "Bacon and Shakespeare," 9. 

Smythe, Wentworth, a collaborator in the Rising of Cardinal Wolsey, 
453. 

Southampton, as to the Davenant lie about, 132. 

Spedding, James, as to Bacon's poetical faculties, 284; as to collabo- 
ration in Henry the Eighth, 456. 



INDEX. 



529 



Spenser, Edmund, reference to Pleasant Willy, 103; was a member of 

the Areopagus Club, 213. 
Steevens, George, traced Shaksper's signatures. 77. 
Symonds, as to Sir John Oldcastle, 29. 



Taine, his analysis of Bacon's poetical talent, 284. 

Taming of a Shrew, noted in Henslowe's Diary, 379. 

Taming of the Shrew, what Henslowe's Diary shows, 42; changed 

as to characters and induction, 380. 
Tarquin and Lucrece, not noticed by Heminge and Condell, 260; 

revised, with added notes after Shaksper's death, 343; resemblance 

to it in Drayton's Barons' Wars, 343. 
Test of Styles, explanation of, 205. 
Thackeray, as to idolaters, 5; as to bloody tragedies, 397. 
Thomas Lord Cromwell, ascribed to Shaksper by Schlegel, 28. 
Thorpe, Thomas, publisher of the Shakespeare Sonnets, 219. 
Time, as a chorus, noted in Henslowe's Diary, 486. 
Timon of Athens, what Fleay said as to its composition, 177. 
Titus Andronicus, how mentioned in the Diary, 39; rejected by the 

commentators, 398; Drayton traced in it, 399; Dekker's hand in 

it, 402. 
Tofte, Robert, speaks of Drayton as bearing the archangel s name, 

107. . _ , 

Troilus and Cressida, entry in Diary as to, 30; competency ot Dek- 

ker and Chettle as writers, 374; marks of Bacon in the play as 

reviser, 377. 
Two Angry Women of Abingdon, the work of Henry Porter, 476. 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, work of two men, 458; Dekker traced 

in it, 459; Blackstone as to its faults, 459; its expressions point to 

Dekker, 459; Drayton had a hand in it, 460. 
Two Harpies, a play bought by Henslowe, 35. 
Tyler, Thomas, his absurd guess as to the Sonnets, 133. 



Venus and Adonis, work of a scholar, 254; not collaborated, 262; 
peculiarities of, 355; freedom from Warwickshireisms, 369. 

Verplanck, Gulien C, remarks as to Beroune, 44; as to Daniel's 
letter, 109; his remarks as to Titus Adronicus, 398; as to Henry 
the Eighth, 454; his views as to writer of Winter's Tale, 487. 

Von Schlegel, August W., his opinion of Sir John Oldcastle, 28. 

W 

Wadeson, Anthony, collaborator, 27. 

Walters, James, inventor of Shaksper's legal employment, 147. 

Ward, Rev. John, what he said of Shaksper, 157. 

Warwickshire, Drayton born in, 324. 

Warwickshireisms in the Falstaff plays, 462. 



530 INDEX. 

Waverley, authorship of, concealed, 12. 

Webb, Judge, as to conjectures of Shaksper worshipers, 150; what he 

says of the commentators, 183; as to the poems, 368. 
Webster, John, a collaborator, 27; connected with Csesar's Fall, 31; 

what he said of Shakespeare, 194; tested as to Venus and Adonis, 

260; collaborated in Richard the Third, 450; traced in Cymbeline, 

499. 
Whateley, Anne, license to marry Shaksper, 134. 
Whereat, frequent use of, in Venus and Adonis and Tarquin and 

Lucrece, 357. 
Whipple, what he said of Dekker's dramatic talents, 2. 
White, Richard Grant, as a doubter, 10; shows that Sidney was 

" Pleasant Willy," 106. 
Whitney, dedication of the Choice of Emblems, 350. 
Widow of Watling Street not written by Shaksper, 100. 
Wilson, Robert, was a collaborator in play writing, 27 ; wrote part of 

Oldcastle, 29. 
Winter's Tale not mentioned by Henslowe, 486; as to the Jealous 

Comedy, 486; as to traces of Bacon, 487; Draytonian expressions 

in it, 487; Dekker's hand recognized in it, 488; Johnson's fling at 

the writer, 488; eulogy on Drayton and Dekker, 489. 
Wither, what he said about publishers, 349. 
Words, limit as to their use, 208. 

Y 

Yorkshire Tragedy not written by Shaksper, 100. 



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